Of all the books being made into movies this summer, “”Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”” has stirred up the most excitement. But how does it compare to the book?
The wizarding world is on edge: Voldemort is gaining more and more momentum with the help of his Death Eaters. There’s talk of students staying home from Hogwarts but the famous trio – Harry, Ron and Hermione – have returned for their sixth year. Harry suspects someone is aiding Voldemort from the inside, but not even his friends and allies seem to care. (Malfoy, donning a Lex Luthor tux, he must be up to something,
right?)
This year Dumbledore is helping Harry, a.k.a. “”The Chosen One,”” fulfill his destiny in preparations for his final one-on-one battle with the Dark Lord. Evil is definitely afoot, as well as some love triangles. Will love conquer evil? Is there even a battle between Voldemort and Harry in this movie? What will happen next?
After the previous installments, it is expected that the movie will never be the same as the book with changes and alltertions to fit more of a visual audience. Having the book freshly read, from cover to cover, only adds to the movie’s disappointment. The movie does a decent job of bringing the audience up to speed. There are numerous modifications that seemingly have no reason to have such drastic changes and omissions.
It was frustrating to find scenes with important characters replaced with others and no visit to the Dursleys’, alongside quite a few obvious in-your-face love scenes between Harry and Ginny, as well as Ron and Hermione. There are additional scenes that didn’t serve a purpose. The Weasleys’ burrow was never attacked by Bellatrix and Fenir in the book, yet the movie appears to disagree.
While the movie was entertaining, avid Potter fans may not find the movie to their liking. Having both the book and movie in mind makes you pick out the numerous flaws, detail by detail.
For example, Quidditch is pushed to the wayside. The house elves apparently don’t exist. No apparitioning, either, besides that with Harry and Dumbledore. Not all the subplots are revealed, and not all the scenes made much sense to those who didn’t follow the books.
The movie did have its share of laugh-out-loud humor, giving an occasional break to the awkward love scenes between some of Hogwarts’ witches and wizards. The movie had great cinematography accompanied by awesome visual effects. The movie succeeded in summarizing the 653-page original in a compelling way, no matter how inaccurate it may be.
Rating: C+/B- or 3/5 stars
Rated PG for scary images, some violence, language and mild sensuality.
