Thursday, Feb. 18, 2010

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

I could save you reading an additional 249 words by simply describing this movie with one: Boring. But because I am a fan of the franchise, both the books and the films, I will give this film its due and trash it with a careful and expanded diatribe. The film is dark and brooding, with gray skies or key scenes filmed at night which gives you a sense of foreboding, but nothing really exciting happens. It all feels like flashbacks and a history lesson as to why the bad guys are bad. The action is minimal and when it does happen, it ends up anticlimactic. The whole movie comes off as a lead-up to the two-part finale that is due to hit theaters in November. After the big showdown between Potter and the villain, Voldemort, at the conclusion of the previous installment, "Order of the Phoenix," you would think that you would at least see Voldemort in the next film, but no, what you do see is a cloud in the shape of Voldemort. There are some key events that happen in this plot that sculpt Potter's character, but do we really need two-and-a-half hours dedicated to bolstering a couple of scenes? The book throws the info out like an assembly line in tightly-wound suspenseful lines that keeps you glued to the pages for days but it doesn't work on screen, not with the pedigree that we have come to expect from these movies. All we can hope for in the future of this franchise is to amp up the action and find a way to feed us the background information while not lulling us to sleep with pretty backdrops and wordy dialogue. In other words, more showing and less telling. Recommended only for hardcore Harryheads.