Speaking as Wired.com’s resident Harry Potter addict, here’s what I think fans will like (and maybe dislike) about the latest movie, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
Half-Blood Prince, which hit theaters Wednesday, is in the top tier of Potter films. In part, this is because the book on which it is based was a return to form for the series. It is fast-paced and adventurous where its predecessor, 2007’s Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, was convoluted and occasionally slow.
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The main reason for Half-Blood Prince‘s cinematic success is director David Yates‘ decision to dispense with the notion that Potter films must slavishly follow the scenes in the books, lest die-hard fans be disappointed.
Instead, Yates gives us an alternate-reality version of the events in the Half-Blood Prince novel, telling the story in a way that sometimes differs greatly on the details, but gets us from point A to point B all the same — flowing much more naturally as a film than a scene-by-scene re-creation of the book would have. Happily, it’s both funnier and scarier than the previous films.
Still, no matter how well the cuts and additions served the film, some fans are bound to get steamed. Here are three things they’ll enjoy seeing on film and three moments that might have Potter fans all in a Snitch.
(Spoiler alert: Minor plot points ahead.)
1. Jim Broadbent While Michael Gambon (as Albus Dumbledore) and Alan Rickman (Severus Snape) are still fantastic as, respectively, the most beloved and most hated wizard-professors at Hogwarts, it’s veteran Brit character actor Jim Broadbent who steals the show in Half-Blood Prince. I didn’t think much of his character, Horace Slughorn, in the book, but Broadbent imbues the role — a professor whose compulsive need to be seen as a treasured mentor leads to a tragic fall — with startling emotion.
2. Hogwarts’ new look “I never realized how beautiful this place is,” Harry says in the film’s final line. The world of wizards has changed quite a bit from the colorful theme park of the first two films, and Half-Blood Prince has some great visual moments, especially when Harry and Dumbledore magically jump back in time to see Lord Voldemort as a creepy, grade-school wizard.
3. Harry and Ginny The boy wizard hooks up with his soulmate in Half-Blood Prince. The books don’t really have a whole lot of build-up to this moment: There are only slight hints of tension between the two until the moment that, wham, they start making out after a Quidditch match in front of the Gryffindor common room. In the movie, there are lots of added scenes before this where Harry and Ginny get close to kissing, but they keep getting interrupted by things like other people walking in on them, or Helena Bonham Carter burning their house down, etc. Stuff that could happen to any of us.
1. Harry and Ginny While the relationship now has a lot more weight behind it, the actual payoff is anticlimactic. That big scene in the common room that fans loved in the book? Gone. In its place, a private stolen kiss in a hidden chamber.
And that’s it for Harry’s love life: He goes right back off on his adventures with the headmaster, and his girlfriend goes to the cutting-room floor.
2. More big, big cuts The massive climactic battle at Hogwarts, with Death Eaters swarming the school? Gone. In its place is a mid-movie fight scene that doesn’t seem to serve any particular purpose in the plot other than establishing that, yes, Voldemort’s pals are still trying very hard to kill Harry Potter. As already mentioned, they manage to burn down the Weasleys’ house in the meantime, which doesn’t happen in the book.
And hard-line Minister of Magic Rufus Scrimgeour? Or Fleur Delacour, bride-to-be of one of the elder Weasley brothers? Gone, not that anyone will particularly mind.
3. Lavender Brown In a film where the likes of Rickman, Robbie Coltrane (who plays Rubeus Hagrid), Helena Bonham Carter (Bellatrix Lestrange) and Maggie Smith (Minerva McGonagall) are woefully underused, fans might cringe at the seemingly inordinate amount of time given over to Lavender Brown, Ron’s first girlfriend. That said, this could be because Jessie Cave turns in an excellent performance as everybody’s first girlfriend: clingy, obnoxiously cutesy and quite possibly emotionally disturbed.
In a more general sense, audiences may end up arguing over whether the film should have spent quite so much time on the teen romance/comedy bits. These are quite funny if you’re already into the books, especially the sight of Hermione drowning her sorrows in butterbeer and stumbling tipsy out of the Three Broomsticks bar.
But that’s what Half-Blood Prince is all about — love in a time of all-out war. In fact, the book specifically makes the connection between Voldemort’s return to his murderous ways and an increase in wizards and witches hooking up. Why not, when there might not be a tomorrow?
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