Tuesday, July 21, 2009

of Harry Potter and HBP Review

If order of phoenix was a dark , war movie ... half blood prince is teenage Chiclets set in fantasy land ..... All the harry potter fans had expected this edition to be full of dark magic as well as dark secrets being revealed...... the movie sadly lacks in fulfilling either of the two .....

To start with let us discuss what makes HBP -the book as one of the best of the series..... the book though contains very less of war and magical duels .... it makes up for it by clever use of human emotions and sketching out of characters ...... The book essentially is about the relation between the trio of harry, Ron and Hermione with others, as well as sketching the character of Voldemort ...... by the 827th page, every reader is aware of what lord Voldemort was like as a child, what he grew up to be and what are the traits that make him the darkest wizard of all times.....

The movie sadly misses this vital part of the book ... no where Voldemorts character is sketched out in detail , as the book does.... there is a small mention of Voldemort wanting to be different and collecting tropihies but that is no where translated to his horocruxes or the hiding places he chooses .... sadly also the ring (one the three deathly hollows) is ignored in the movie ...... the average viewer is left guessing , as to how did Dumbledore knew about Vodermort's horocruxes, how he had figured about the cave and even what would the other horocruxes might be .....

Now coming to the part of emotions ...... in the book, Rowling has successfully sketched the characters of Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Luna, Mrs weasly,weasly twins, Rupin, Snape, Bellatrix, narcissia, Dumbledore , Nevil etc etc .... each one of the characters is set up for the role they play in the seventh edition ... it also details out the love angels of harry, Ron, Ginny and Hermione ..... the movie does its bit in sketching those details out ... but in trying to stay a fast paced movie, the editor has messed up the director's vision of the movie being a love story ......

One character that is sketched as per Rowling's vision, is Draco malfoy ... malfoy who was reduced to an extra's role gets his due in the movie. the movie captures his dilemma , his arrogance of being marked a death eater, his frustration and his fear of not being able to deliver his task. Sadly though this will be the last time he gets any decent screen space for he is almost absent in the seventh book.

The movie also has quite a few deviations from the book ..... for starters.... the coffee shop girl is an addition, so is Maclaggen's advances on Hermoine ...... Its Luna who saves harry in the train compartment when malfoy knocks him out, and points out Felix Felic's to Ron, as against Tonks and Hermione respectively who do so in the book... the attack on burrow is uncalled for so is the part about Harry and Ginny's kiss in the room of requirements .... these deviations neither add any spice in the movie nor are a visual treat ...... the worst part of the movie is that it changes the ending completely ...... Harry instead of being frozen by Dumbledore , is asked by him to move to the floor below, from where he watches the whole death sequence of Dumbledore ...... this is gross absurdity for harry would never stay quiet while dumbledore is being attacked ..... and even if he does, it was very easy for him to blast the whole place, after dumbledore was killed, and kill the death eaters which he does not ....... not quite the ending we expected ..... and even worse was Dumbledore's funeral which was marked by raising of wands.....


This is not to say that the movie has nothing to offer to the audience ... it is a visual delight.... sequences like breaking of millennium bridge, slughorn's conversion to an arm chair, or inferni attacks on Harry & Dumbledore are well shot and are the one that linger on in the memory long after the movie ... the value of the movie lies in its cinematography as well as the sets (usual part of HP movies) ..... The movie is fast paced to the extent that many important characters are reduced to passing mentions ...... but that perhaps also makes the movie interesting ..... for example ... Greyback is introduced in the movie through a 5 second shot of a wanted poster...... the viewer then has to link that shot with 3 subsequent instances when he is shown in the movie...... so anyone who missed that cue will not be able to realize who greyback is ... or the viewers see dumbledore playing with tom riddle's diary just before horocrux's are mentioned.... thus it is left for viewers to deduce that the diary was also one of the horocruxes.

the whole plot of half blood prince is lost somewhere in movie and as per me could have been eliminated completely to give some more details about voldemort.

The cast as usual delivers a good performance.... Ron, slughorn, Hermoine and Lavender brown being the top pick ...... Radcliffe now looks too mature to play a 15-16 year old boy and the production movie house now needs to shoot the 7th edition pretty soon before he starts to look manly .....
Speaking of production house, some one has to ensure consistency across all the seven parts in small things like props (the stone pensive changes to a steel one in the movie, Dumbledore's wand has changed , the slytherine locket does not have a S on it, the school brooms now have leg rests which were not there in the first movie and so on ..... character's dressings have also changed a fair bit .... Ron no where sports the red sweaters that are typical of weaselys or Snape hair is less greasy from previous version.

Overall, all that you missed in the fifth part - Quidditch, Ron's antics, love and crushes, you will find in the sixth part ...... do talk someone who has read the book , after the movie .... this will ensure you get to understand what actually has happened in the sixth edition of the book and what all you have missed.......

My advice - the movie is worth a dekho for its visual appeal but please don't expect a lot of story in it ...... those who know the book by heart look out for small cues that could be used in the next part (like RAB's photo on slug's desk)

Overall rating - 3 /5

3 comments:

Anand Lonkar said...

Good analysis :). Need some of your blogging expertise on the InfyFeb Story. send me something on pyaasis..

Pranav Bhardwaj said...

I don't follow HP so religiously but have seen all the movies... I did't really like this one... it lacked a lot of masala... worst is that this was my daughter's first HP movie and she kind of was expecting more too :)

Richa said...

excellent review..you have pretty much said everything that was there to it! I completely agree...without reading the book, its virtually impossible to really feel the evil that was supposed to be the highlight of this book rather than mushy teenage love circles