Half-Blood Prince

[vickyducky]

I'd agreed that it would be nice for P and D and I to see this as a family as part of our holiday, so I saw this in Scarborough, last Friday. It was a completely surreal experience, due not to the film, but the setting. It was like I'd gone back in time thirty years (apart from the price)to the days before multiplex cinemas, comfy seats with cup-holders, air conditioning etc. The cinema seems also to double as a theatre, with stalls and circle seating. When we got there, although it was some time until the published show time, a lot of adverts were playing, there was even the Pearl and Dean logo and music!, and then the lights came back up and an usherette appeared at the front selling ice-cream from a tray around her neck! And half-way through the film, just after the bit with Remus at the Burrow, there was an interval, with the usherette again!

Now that we're home, I'm probably going to go and see it again, in a modern setting, this afternoon. I'm a bit unsure because I've only ever been to the cinema by myself once before,when I saw OoTP, and that was during term-time. I shall be a bit self-conscious on my own in a sea of teenagers.

Anyway - the film. There was a lot that was missed out, inevitably, and quite a lot put in that I wasn't so keen on, and I felt it dragged rather, but then all the action was squashed into about five minutes at the end. On the whole, though, I enjoyed it.

I'm afraid that I really did hate the Harry/Ginny sequences. Part of the problem is that Bonny thingy is all wrong. It's a terrible thing to say, but she's too ordinary looking. I don't mean that Ginny should be the drop-dead gorgeous, flame-haired temptress of fics, but she should be a bit striking looking, I think. She could have overcome this, though, if her acting had been a bit better, but she was just not very good.

The second problem with the H/G was down to either the script or the director - she was so possessive and encroaching,even before they got together. The bit with the mince-pies! Oh, to quote Hermione - I'm sorry I have to go and vomit. And what on earth was all that standing around in the swamp during the attack on the Burrow? And as for the scene with the potions book in the Room of Lost Things! Surely the whole point was that Harry hid the book so he could come back and get it, and that is when he notices Rowena Ravenclaw's Diadem? Was that shown in the background somewhere and I missed it? How will he find it in DH now?

Having been rude about Bonny's acting, I think Daniel Radcliffe's was more hit and miss than I'd expected after he was so good in Equus. I did love the Felix Felicis scenes and I couldn't help feeling when he was smoozing up to Slughorn in the Three Broomsticks, that that is just what he's like with authority figures in real life.

Tom Felton was very good, especially on the tower. Alan Rickman was just wonderful. His delivery is utter perfection. I was a bit disappointed with the sectumsempra scene - I'd imagined more gore somehow, expected a special effect showing his belly cut open, I didn't think you got a sense of how serious a wound it had been. I wish they'd made more of the Half-Blood Prince bit.

Jim Broadbent was utterly marvelous as Slughorn. He looked nothing like I'd imagined him, but he really played him perfectly, he just was Slughorn. Which points up what I said about Ginny - it wouldn't have mattered that she looked wrong, if she'd convinced me she was Ginny better.

The island sequence was all done in a flash, and why did Harry get pulled underwater? Was it just that having paid to teach DR to scuba dive for GoF they wanted to get their money's worth?

Oh and the tower scenes. It really brought back how I felt when I first read it. All the astonishment and excitement and mystification and Dumbledore can't be dead! There must be another explanation. It must be a trick he cooked up with Snape! Snape can't be bad. And on top of that feeling so sorrowful for Snape, given how it ends for him. I thought everyone was terrific in those scenes - I was really spell-bound by it. But then it all kind of went out on a whimper. In the book there's been fighting, and the Death Eaters flee. It felt that they ran - that there was an urgency to it - they might be caught. Now the deed was done they had to get away. In the film they just strolled out calmly with time for Bellatrix to blow up a few things. I knew there was more to the confrontation between Snape and Harry but didn't know what until I read novembersnow's lj and realised Snape doesn't yell "Don't call me coward". Alan Rickman is great, but Snape should have been more furious somehow in that scene.

Soppy I know, but I found the scene with everyone holding their lit wands aloft quite moving.

Kept thinking 'Oh my God! The Elder Wand!' every time they had a lingering shot of it - but how is Voldemort going to steal it if it isn't in Dumbledore's tomb?

And then yet another sentimental ending. One minute Hermione's talking to Harry about Snape and Draco (and isn't it odd that the trio call him Draco, not Malfoy) and then she completely changes the subject and says Ron is fine about Harry and Ginny.

I thought the Ron/Lavender stuff was well done. In fact Ron throughout was great, the Quiditch and the love potion were excellent. Wasn't so keen on the extra scenes with Hermione crying.

Think that's everything. If I do go and see it again I shall probably change my mind about everything.

ETA: I've just got back from seeing it again and I feel that maybe I was a bit harsh about DR's acting. There are a couple of false notes in the early scenes (did they shoot them first?) but mostly he is pretty good, particularly when he was getting Slughorn to give him the true memory down in Hagrid's Hut.

Also, Alan Rickman is a genius. He can convey so much with a look. His expression when he takes the unbreakable vow, and again when he AK's Dumbledore, is just brilliant - all of Snape's backstory is there in a glance.

Why was Harry dressed as a vampire at Slughorn's Christmas party?

Comments

[earth-magic.livejournal.com]

This very much sums up my feelings about the film. Yes, Snape does says he's the Half-blood prince, but there is no explanation about what he means. And somehow the ending just lacked something. It was almost as if Dumbledore wasn't dead for all they played it. Surely they could have had Fawles flying down over the tomb even if there was no actual service.

And I'm now completely over my H/G things *laughs* It's gone and forgotten and I feel pretty much for Ginny like I always have ... nothing much at all. If they want Harry to have a girlfriend I still think Luna is a much better choice.

[vickyducky.livejournal.com]

I've just got in from seeing it again, and although my awe at the perfect nuances of Alan Rickman's performance has increased, my overall feelings about the film are the same. And I still couldn't see anything that might be a Diadem - which is a bit of a cheat really.

Glad you've seen sense again - I agree about Luna.