FILM REVIEW: HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF BLOOD PRINCE

The long weekend is finally upon me. After today's shift, I have a 5-day break to cover for my not being able to file another leave during the next couple of months that I'll be training for our new business unit, which I'll be joining next month. This is not in any way related to the movie, and I'm too tired to erase all of the words I've already typed so just bear with me with this paragraph. I just wanted to say that I have a 5-day weekend. Alone at home. Without my parents. And without annoying neighbors to monitor everything I'm doing (cue horns and devilish grin).

Alright, enough about that. I'm writing this post assuming that since all of you are reading my blog, that you've already read the book... so spoilers abound. So if you haven't and don't want to know what happens in the movie. Just scroll down and read my previous posts. Don't click on the X button.

EDIT: I just reread the review and realized that I didn't spoil anything major that happened in the film. So it's kinda safe to read it... but if you don't want to risk anything just scroll to my other previous posts.



You're still reading this so I guess that means you want to be spoiled. Let's get it on.

I'll start with this: Among all of the Harry Potter books, The Half-Blood Prince is one of my least favorite books in the series. And it doesn't help that it references events that happened from my least favorite book of the series: The Chamber of Secrets. But having said that, I still find the movie really good.

It's been over a year since I last read the book, so I'm not really sure how faithful this adaptation is. But in any case I do remember having read most if not all of the things that happened in the movie. Clocking at two and a half hours, this movie is really long, and despite the length you'd find that it isn't action heavy unlike the last two films. I've heard some of the people who saw the film yesterday say that it's kinda boring. But one thing that's very noticeable about this flick is that it's visually stunning.

So, the kids are now grown up. Problems arise because of their lovelife and not because of kid stuff like ogres in the girl's bathrooms, werewolves for teachers or triwizard tournaments. Harry, Ron and Hermione are back at Hogwarts on history's darkest days. Voldemort's confirmed to be alive and the Death Eaters are bringing chaos all over the muggle and magic communities. Dumbledore's tasked Harry to find out the secret to defeating Voldemort by watching people's memories of the young Tom Riddle. While love is in the air for alot of the main characters of the series.

Just like the book, the film's not really action-oriented. Fight scenes are few and far between. That's basically the reason people tend to say that it's boring. I think there's a total of three fight scenes in this movie and not one of them lasted longer than five minutes. But if you're into cinematography and artsy fartsy stuff, you'd appreciate this movie. I love the shots in the cornfield fight scenes, the island fight scenes. And this is the movie where I realized that Hogwarts really IS a beautiful place. The movie is really visually stunning. To be fair, not once did I look at my watch during the entirety of the film (unlike the Transformers running scene which lasted about 45 minutes... I think... I still love T2:ROTF)

Prior to watching the movie, I saw all five of the previous films so it's nice to see how everyone grew up and improved over the course of the six films. Eight years and six films Rowling's series still makes me believe in MAGIC.

In any case, now I'm really looking forward to seeing the last two films based on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows.


RATING: 8.5 out of 10 stars