“Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince” Review

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince was definitely the worst film out of the series so far.  In fact, it’s the worst movie I’ve seen since that ridiculous thing they called a film and labeled “The X-Files: I Want To Believe”.

My first problem with this movie is that it felt entirely disjointed.  This was especially true of the first half of the movie, where the scenes bounced back and forth, and a lot of things were presented with no explanation.  Also, there were scenes that felt entirely unnecessary to further the plot.  Also, I’m not sure even the directors knew what they wanted the plot to be.  What I mean is that the trailers indicated that this would be a movie with a lot of action and a lot of important events, when in reality, nearly every action sequence in the movie was in the trailers.  The rest was dry.  It was like watching a high school love drama, complete with mushy kissing scenes, teenage angst, and jealousy.

Also, Harry Potter has always been about magic.  Where was the magic in this movie?  Again, the most astonishing thing you’ll see in the film was already shown in the trailers: Dumbledore summong fire.  The rest is weak.  Little balls of light flying from wands, and some steam coming from potions.  The previous films were special effects masterpieces that thrilled the imagination.  This, by comparison, was boring to the point of not even caring.  No magical creatures, very few magical devices.  Nothing imaginative in the least, which has been a staple of Harry Potter films.  There is nothing in this film that compares with the giant spiders, the flying car, the magic train station… none of it.  This was so sad by comparison.  I just can’t emphasize enough how… dry it was.  The whole thing lacked energy and seemed to deviate from what the story was really about.

Based on what we saw in the trailers, we were expecting some incredible event.  The trailers hinted that there would be some sort of magic spillover into the real world.  There was, for all of about 4 minutes.  And… what was the point of the whole bridge collapse anyway?  Just to have something exciting happen to keep the audience awake?  Just to use in the trailer?  I fought boredom for the duration of the film, constantly in anticipation of the action sequences that never came.

The last thing I’d like to know is where is the character development?  Harry Potter is supposed to be The Chosen One, but his abilities are, in most cases, less than extraordinary.  Shouldn’t he have learned something new by now, or at the least become powerful enough to defend himself?  Sure, he’s still in school, but… come on.  He’s The Chosen One right?  He’s supposed to defeat Voldemort, but he still has a hard time beating someone who’s supposed to be less than his equal, like Malfoy.

In the end, the film ended abruptly, leaving me entirely disappointed and in disbelief that a Harry Potter movie had been so bad, so dry, so … worthless.  This movie really sucked the life out of the series for me.  I’m not looking forward to the next Harry Potter movie anymore, and I even wonder if there would be any point to reading the books at this point.  Books are always better than the movies, but in this case, if the series gets this bad towards the end, I’m not sure I want to bother.