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Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Movie Grade: B-

Overall Grade: C

The Harry Potter franchise is one of the most true film series to the original novels. The incredibly popular book series would inevitably be made into film, and it was done so before the book series had even reached completion. Starting shortly before Harry’s eleventh birthday, each installment in the series takes you through another year of Harry’s life in the wizarding world. As each story goes on, the topics become more and more dark and adult-starting with a book filled mostly with whimsical fantasy, and ending with a frightening tale of Harry finally attempting to destroy Lord Voldimort, the greatest dark wizard who ever existed.

As far as the quality of the adaptation is concerned, the masses of Harry Potter nerds have reacted quite positively to the on screen representation. When the film series reached part four, which had a massive increase in the length of the book, the film was met with criticism but still appreciated for its new, more gothic style of directing. This being the sixth installment, there were also many complaints on things that were left out, but even more so on what was added in.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is Harry’s sixth year in the wizarding world, a year where he both finds out the bizarre back-story of Voldimort, but the year he and his friends seem to become more in touch with their romantic endeavors. The latter of the two is the backburner story that carried the book along between the dreary flashbacks. The odd thing about this adaptation is that it swaps the two. Now we get the fantasy genres style of romantic comedy with a dismal set of flashbacks and a quick adventure towards the end.

It isn’t even that the one story was given more time in the film, it is that they expanded upon what seemed to be semantics in the story in favor of showing the deep and complex origins of the antagonist of this seven part series. After so many books it is somewhat frustrating not knowing why the bad guy is so bad. There is more than enough information to satisfy any fan in the book, but all we get here all we get is that he was from an orphanage and he thrived at school. The book tells you about his parents before he was born, after he was born, details about his interaction with other orphans, what he wanted to do after school, and an excellent scene where he has his last civil meeting with Dumbledore, the headmaster of the Wizarding School. Not on reference to anything just mentioned made its way into the film, but Ron’s girlfriend managed to get new scenes added to change her character

They even cut out an excellent battle at the end of the film that follows the devastating climax. The battle is extraordinary and wouldn’t have conflicted with anything they had set up in the film. With all of the differences, the ending battle would have still fit exceedingly well. They would have had to give another five to ten minutes for it, but that could have easily been cut out of the pointless romance time that was granted. It doesn’t make much sense for their not to be a battle given the location of the end of the film and all of the people that would be within walking distances that would rightfully fight in it. In the film version everyone just seems to roll over and except the events of the end of the film, except for Harry who has an anti-climactic chase in place of what would have been an action packed scene.

As a fan of the Harry Potter franchise, it is safe to say that this is the worst adaptation of the series from book to film. Considering the fact that many fans of the series have unfortunately not read the books, everything will make sense from the last film and onto the next one. There was nothing left out teat was absolutely crucial to the series’ plot, but there was so much depth lost in the adaptation. There are so many parallels to draw between Harry and Voldimort, and so much behind the rest of the characters. In any adaptation certain qualities will be left out, but this one chose to focus on all the wrong plot points.

Also, the DVD is absent of features: this is just another attempt by “the man” to get you to conform and buy a blu-ray player. Well get over it because soon you won’t be able to buy DVDs anymore so join the rest of us capitalist pigs with are high resolution.

Movie Grade: B-

Overall Grade: C