Ah, yes, Harry is back. After missing his previous November opening, Harry Potter and friends have made their triumphant return!
I'd like to preface this by saying that HP6 is my favorite of the seven books. It's the one that tells Voldemort's story, it's the one where Harry is forced to make the hardest decisions, it's the most elegantly written of them all.
Now, I enjoyed the new movie. It was fun to see some of the things I only imagined put onto screen. Unfortunately, I don't think they did a very good job writing the story, and more, I think some of the omissions they chose to make earlier in the series are now coming back to bite them in the ass. It will be interesting to see how they choose to compensate for them.
The plan has started to become evident with the biggest scene they added, the holiday adventure at the Weasley's. Also, the biggest omission, the funeral, gives them a way to get everyone together at the beginning of the next film without having to show a marriage between characters we don't know. I just wish they had taken two seconds at some point earlier to introduce the necessary characters.
But, I digress.
The story in this movie was pretty good. I'm not someone who is adamant that film makers use the book as the script. I understand that books and films are different mediums and thus things have to be changed. But, I'm pretty sure this movie was not nearly as exciting as it could have been. It dragged in several places to the point where they shoe-horned a bizarre Death-Eater attack in there then never talked about it again just to fit in more action. In retrospect I understand what I believe is being set up with that scene, but the ramifications were pretty big and yet no one talked about it again. Just seemed odd.
The acting was alright. The problem with putting these kids in the same scene with Michael Gambon and Alan Rickman and Helena Bonham Carter is that none of the kids are in the same league as those three. I will say this, though, when Harry was under the power of Felix Felicitous or however you spell that, Daniel Radcliffe was very good. It was nice to see that different side of Harry.
I thought it the end was completely botched. The emotional weight was completely lost by the way Gambon portrayed Dumbledore and Rickman portrayed Snape. I think the director had read the seventh book and altered the way Dumbledore was portrayed according to how things are revealed at the end of that book. It just wasn't well done.
Ha! After reading this article you will think I didn't like the movie, but I did. It was fun, magical, and beautiful. Malfoy was excellent, Helena Bonham Carter was excellent. The girl who played Luna was as adorable as ever. The romance between Ron and Lavender was wonderfully over the top. Quidditch was back! And much better looking than before. They used real people instead of CGI versions and that made a huge difference. There were lots and lots of high points which shined brighter than the flaws.
Go see it.
