Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince Review

Damn, Daniel Radcliffe is short.

Warning: I am not a "die hard" Harry Potter fan. I have not read the books nor do I intend to any time in the near future. This post contains spoilers about the movie Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and my sarcastic ass comments and opinions. If you are easily offended or take HP way too seriously, then do not get mad at me after you read below.

My sister, her spoiler-phobe boyfriend, and I went to see Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince on Friday night. I know, wait a minute, WTF was he doing there? If you read my post in June about how seeing the Harry Potter movies in the theater with just my sis was our ritual, you didn't hallucinate. Thinking ahead, my sister went ahead and bought two tickets to the movie earlier in the day. Read that, two. Our tradition was spoiled since the boyfriend came along even though he knows about our tradition. So dear husband, you are going to see New Moon with me and my sister when it comes out. She can't complain since her boyfriend went to this!

My sister wanted to get to the theater early. Getting there 45 minutes early was a good thing, that movie theater was already starting to get packed. We sat in a set of four handicap accessible seats, so we had an open seat by the boyfriend and tons of leg room. I'm 5'10" so leg room is mega important. The sis and I were super duper excited about seeing the New Moon preview on the cinema screen. Unfortunately that was a no go, they didn't show it.

I've mentioned before that I have a huge case of movie Tourettes. You should have seen Dawn of the Dead with me. I got so many dirty looks for laughing during that whole movie. It didn't help that my sister jumped at everything, which made me laugh louder. Anyway, I can't keep my comments to myself and I'm always asking what happened in the books since I haven't read them. The spoiler-phobe boyfriend gets pissed if you talk during the movie, so I had to use my sister as a buffer between us. The lights went down, I said WTF no New Moon trailer probably a little too loud and the movie started.

(I don't remember the whole sequence of events in the movie since I was talking a decent chunk of the time, so forgive me for stuff that's probably wrong.)

I'll just list the stuff I didn't like first

1. That guy who plays Malfoy gets uglier and uglier every movie. Maybe it's the bleached hair, but yuck. And I know bad teeth is a British thing, but if the Luna hippie chick can fix Harry's nose, why can't Neville fix his damn teeth?
2. Really, killing off Dumbledore? They're all freaking wizards, I'm sure Snape could have just used a spell that made everyone think he was dead. (And yes, my sister had to text me what happened in the last book so I now know that was all a ruse.) Then Dumbledore could go to Jamaica for a few years. Drink lots of drinks, get a tan.
3. The nostrils on young Tom Riddle (Voldemort) drove me crazy. They were like two giant caves in a very smug and manipulative head.
4. Lavender's (Ron's girlfriend) bandannas and 80s hair irritated me too. Unless you're riding bitch on a Harley, don't do the do-rag.
5. At the end when Harry's chasing after Snape and the rest of the Ugly Crew, clearly magic wasn't working on anyone. If I made this movie, I would have had Harry chuck a sharp rock at Snape's head. He's expecting magic, not a rock. I bet Harry could have at least nailed him in the balls or something. And I totally would have used that wand to shoot electricity through all that water in the bathroom, frying Malfoy to a crisp. Or at least burning all of his hair off.

The things I loved:

1. I really loved how the first half of the movie was so comedic. They really showed how angsty and uncomfortable being a teenager could be. I didn't laugh as hard as I did at The Hangover, but this movie was definitely pretty light.
2. As the movie opened, I really liked how they went right into the death eaters messing with everyone. They didn't waste anytime getting right into the action.
3. The movie was just gorgeous. The landscapes were especially breathtaking.
4. Recognizing the actors from other movies. My sister didn't appreciate me saying "Hey look, there's Bridget Jones' mom and dad!" every time I saw them in the same scene together. Luckily, it only happened a couple of times. She didn't know that's who they were, so now she does thanks to me.
5. I really loved how Harry acted after drinking the luck potion. There were definitely more adult jokes and themes in this movie. (Which gives me hope for Breaking Dawn being more adult, cough*juicyhoneymoonscenes*cough.) Also, in all of the quidditch scenes, much phallic imagery.

I really did like this movie and I'll have to watch it again when the dvd comes out. I'll borrow my sister's of course. I'm waiting for the complete series on blu-ray how ever many years from now. Oh and as a last note, if the Harry Potter Experience comes to a museum near you, go see it. It's at the Science and Industry Museum here in Chicago and it was pretty cool. Except you couldn't bring a stroller in. And I had to carry a sleeping baby through the whole damn thing.