The new Harry Potter movie is a bit disappointing. They didn’t even say the words “Snape…killed Dumbledore.” The movie seemed rushed, and focused too much on the teen love/hormones/drama angle. Maybe the book had the 90120 with owls angle too, but it also spent more time on the rise of the Deatheaters, the mystery of who the half-blood prince is, and other interesting tidbits. And I didn’t like the way that the movie dealt with the death of Dumbledore…no invisibility cloak, no paralyzing spell…just Harry hiding in somewhat plain view and standing there not doing anything (mildly out of character…which is why JK Rowlings probably deviced the whole invisibility cloak angle, in addition to the added tension). The whole seen lacked impact.
But as an interesting side note….while I was watching the movie by myself at the theater, A-Yo was watching a pirated Russian version on the computer at home. When I got home, she was at the cave scene. So I watched the end of the movie again in Russian at home. After Snape killed Dumbledore, A-Yo asked “So is Gandalf really dead or can they bring him back to life?” I just answered “Yes, he’s really dead” rather than completely nerd out and talk about how not all wizards are Gandalf, and how the avada kedavra spell can’t be reversed, as anyone who paid attention in Defense Agianst the Dark Arts would know…
sneaky
You can complain about the 90210 aspect, and I agree that there was probably too much of it, but I’d say that those scenes showed that the three main characters are played by people who can actually act. It’s helped at least a little bit by the fact that the actors aren’t much older than the characters they’re portraying. Harry and Ron look like big, awkward dolts, and they act the part, and Hermione, well…
Possibly the reason people are picking on it so much is because there really wasn’t alot of action, at least in comparison to the Melrose Place stuff. There were a few cool zomg wizards! moments like Dumbledore AE’ing the ghouls in the cave (they have a name, I just can’t think of it right now), but by and large it felt a little light in comparison to the great set-pieces in 4 and 5. The scene you complain about at the end was, in the book, the climax of a battle through the whole castle.
*LAST BOOK SPOILERS*Will the last two be an improvement? The last book frankly wasn’t that great. The middle third approached Robert Jordan levels of nothing happening. The reason that Harry is able to defeat Voldemort comes off as confusing and contrived in the book. I haven’t the faintest idea how they’re going to manage to explain it in the movie. There will be some great moments, I’m sure, but I’m scared that they’ll just be OK, grade B movies like this one was.
Also, am I the only one who wants to read some Harry Potter books that don’t have Harry Potter? I don’t think JK Rowling realizes that people don’t really care about Harry that much. He’s just a prop that we follow around in this interesting parallel universe. There are so many interesting questions that she (or somebody she chooses) could write about, like what are wizards like in America? or Asia? How about some detective stories? Maybe a James Bond type wizard spy. These would be cool things to read about and potentially watch movies of, but we’re stuck with god-damn Harry Potter. I do like the books and movies, but I just can’t see why they have to be all we get.