And we're back at it again with my godson and his journey through the Harry Potter movies! This time he brings us his review of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)!
“Voldemort continues to increase both his army and powers but Dumbledore and Harry Potter don't seem very worried and are going on a trip through the city together. There are bridges being destroyed and Harry is just reading a newspaper in a pastry shop. But don't think that the Hogwarts director is more worried! Instead of hurrying to cast half a dozen spells on Voldemort and his henchmen, he prefers to visit an abandoned house. They light up their wands and start searcing other people's houses as if it were their own. If I lived closeby, I wouldn't hesitate on calling the police to tell them that there were two wizards invading private property!
Harry and Albus go through the lot until, amidst the confusion, the mess and dirt, is a very neat armchair. That, of course, catches Dumbledore's attention and, as a grown child, he can't resist touching it. It causes the chairs to suddenly get a head and limbs! I, just for precaution, would soon send a Stupefy to that creature but the director of Hogwarts and Harry do nothing, showing some inattention and lack of preparation to deal with surprise attacks. Then you realise that, after all, the armchair was just a person, Horace Slughorn, with the habit of transforming himself into furniture in abandoned houses during his free time. Dumbledore is so impressed by his talents that he hires him as a teacher at the magic school.
Further on, Draco acts suspiciously and Snape vows to help him complete Voldemort's missions. Already in Hogwarts, Harry Potter discovers a book that belonged to a mysterious prince and uses it to cheat in potions class to win a bottle of Felix Felicis. I believe a student who has this kind of attitude should be punished! Stealing other people's stuff and copying the work is reprehensible. But Harry escapes a penalty from lack of material and a reprimand by making a soup of can burn leaves. For those who only eat soup, it's cream and don't like green stuff floating around, here is a good potion. Otherwise I do'nt see its usefulness.
One day, Harry Potter is out walking with his friends in the snow and sees a girl being a victim of spells! She levitates really high and her mouth is wide open before being thrown back to the ground. It's a beautiful show but it didn't seem be very relevant plot-wise. Dumbledore wants Harry to approach the new teacher to see if he catches him distracted and removes one of those strands of hair that go into the water to see memories. Harry immediately starts being the teacher's pet. Every day, all the time, he's always being very attentive and very curious and, what on the one hand entertains the viewer, on the other hand annoys a lot. Malfoy goes to the basement and finds a box so old that there are mice in there, puts an apple there and some time later it's already a bit chewed.
I was trying to ignore that irritating little girl's crush on Ron but the part where the introduction and development intersect in this film is very confusing because of all the cuts between scenes so the actions rarely have a beginning, middle and end in a same scene and that affects my critical appreciation. So here's a paragraph to say I believe it's wrong! I know that Ron's going to be with Hermione, but that girl is already annoying me, so I think it's appropriate to leave it very explicit here! What's good is that this doesn't last too long because from then on Ron is poisoned and grabs Hermione's hand, which leaves the other girl pretty pissed off.
Moving on, and to make up for all this irritation, Harry sends a Sectumsempra to Malfoy to teach him a lesson! That's right, Harry! Continuing the cut done earlier to get Slughorn's spaghetti, Harry gets him drunk and thus, finishes his mission. In the spaghetti it's apparent that the new potions teacher taught Tom Riddle to make horcruxes. All these horcruxes must be destroyed to kill Voldemort so Harry and Dumbledore go to a cave to go boating and drink lemon juice with a shell. Then they're attacked by many bugs but they manage to escape. However, the Horcrux had already been stolen and so they failed to destroy it. When they return to Hogwarts, Snape kills Dumbledore, which makes me very angry. Hogwarts is taken over by the Black Forces!
As for the characters in particular:
Horace Slughorn: Has a strange hobby of disguising himself as furniture, but other than that he proves to be useful at the end of the movie.
Severus Snape: I always said he was bad and in this movie he proved it. In the end it's known that he's the mysterious prince.
Harry Potter: some lack of preparation to deal with the bad guys but still a nice Sectumsempra against Malfoy and Snape. I didn't like to see him make Dumbledore drink sour water.
Dumbledore: he's the martyr of this film; begins with a dark hand and ends up dead, having to drink expired things in order to get a necklace. I enjoyed his performance during the series although I think that if he was so powerful he could've shown more on certain occasions.
Voldemort: is gaining ground but didn't appear much, it's boring.
Love: Damn! But was this movie released on Valentine's Day? It wasn't! It was on July! Was it necessary to show the characters' adolescense so clearly? Maybe it wasn't! The subject of the moment stopped being Voldemort dominating the world and happened to be Ron, Hermione and the annoying girl... Harry and Ron's sister... The other boy that I don't know the name and Hermione! If I was Voldemort I would have been upset and in the next movie I would start to killing people! So they won't leave him in the background!
In conclusion, it's a extremely difficult movie to summarize because the actions don't have a logical sequence, the scenes are cut by other ones that have nothing to do with the first one and often important things remain to be said because they're spaced for more than 10 minutes. Of course this happens in several movies, but I found some unnecessary cuts in this one.”
Don't miss out on his next review on the Deathly Hallows! If you haven't read the previous ones so far, you can find them over here:
“Voldemort continues to increase both his army and powers but Dumbledore and Harry Potter don't seem very worried and are going on a trip through the city together. There are bridges being destroyed and Harry is just reading a newspaper in a pastry shop. But don't think that the Hogwarts director is more worried! Instead of hurrying to cast half a dozen spells on Voldemort and his henchmen, he prefers to visit an abandoned house. They light up their wands and start searcing other people's houses as if it were their own. If I lived closeby, I wouldn't hesitate on calling the police to tell them that there were two wizards invading private property!
Harry and Albus go through the lot until, amidst the confusion, the mess and dirt, is a very neat armchair. That, of course, catches Dumbledore's attention and, as a grown child, he can't resist touching it. It causes the chairs to suddenly get a head and limbs! I, just for precaution, would soon send a Stupefy to that creature but the director of Hogwarts and Harry do nothing, showing some inattention and lack of preparation to deal with surprise attacks. Then you realise that, after all, the armchair was just a person, Horace Slughorn, with the habit of transforming himself into furniture in abandoned houses during his free time. Dumbledore is so impressed by his talents that he hires him as a teacher at the magic school.
Further on, Draco acts suspiciously and Snape vows to help him complete Voldemort's missions. Already in Hogwarts, Harry Potter discovers a book that belonged to a mysterious prince and uses it to cheat in potions class to win a bottle of Felix Felicis. I believe a student who has this kind of attitude should be punished! Stealing other people's stuff and copying the work is reprehensible. But Harry escapes a penalty from lack of material and a reprimand by making a soup of can burn leaves. For those who only eat soup, it's cream and don't like green stuff floating around, here is a good potion. Otherwise I do'nt see its usefulness.
One day, Harry Potter is out walking with his friends in the snow and sees a girl being a victim of spells! She levitates really high and her mouth is wide open before being thrown back to the ground. It's a beautiful show but it didn't seem be very relevant plot-wise. Dumbledore wants Harry to approach the new teacher to see if he catches him distracted and removes one of those strands of hair that go into the water to see memories. Harry immediately starts being the teacher's pet. Every day, all the time, he's always being very attentive and very curious and, what on the one hand entertains the viewer, on the other hand annoys a lot. Malfoy goes to the basement and finds a box so old that there are mice in there, puts an apple there and some time later it's already a bit chewed.
I was trying to ignore that irritating little girl's crush on Ron but the part where the introduction and development intersect in this film is very confusing because of all the cuts between scenes so the actions rarely have a beginning, middle and end in a same scene and that affects my critical appreciation. So here's a paragraph to say I believe it's wrong! I know that Ron's going to be with Hermione, but that girl is already annoying me, so I think it's appropriate to leave it very explicit here! What's good is that this doesn't last too long because from then on Ron is poisoned and grabs Hermione's hand, which leaves the other girl pretty pissed off.
Moving on, and to make up for all this irritation, Harry sends a Sectumsempra to Malfoy to teach him a lesson! That's right, Harry! Continuing the cut done earlier to get Slughorn's spaghetti, Harry gets him drunk and thus, finishes his mission. In the spaghetti it's apparent that the new potions teacher taught Tom Riddle to make horcruxes. All these horcruxes must be destroyed to kill Voldemort so Harry and Dumbledore go to a cave to go boating and drink lemon juice with a shell. Then they're attacked by many bugs but they manage to escape. However, the Horcrux had already been stolen and so they failed to destroy it. When they return to Hogwarts, Snape kills Dumbledore, which makes me very angry. Hogwarts is taken over by the Black Forces!
As for the characters in particular:
Horace Slughorn: Has a strange hobby of disguising himself as furniture, but other than that he proves to be useful at the end of the movie.
Severus Snape: I always said he was bad and in this movie he proved it. In the end it's known that he's the mysterious prince.
Harry Potter: some lack of preparation to deal with the bad guys but still a nice Sectumsempra against Malfoy and Snape. I didn't like to see him make Dumbledore drink sour water.
Dumbledore: he's the martyr of this film; begins with a dark hand and ends up dead, having to drink expired things in order to get a necklace. I enjoyed his performance during the series although I think that if he was so powerful he could've shown more on certain occasions.
Voldemort: is gaining ground but didn't appear much, it's boring.
Love: Damn! But was this movie released on Valentine's Day? It wasn't! It was on July! Was it necessary to show the characters' adolescense so clearly? Maybe it wasn't! The subject of the moment stopped being Voldemort dominating the world and happened to be Ron, Hermione and the annoying girl... Harry and Ron's sister... The other boy that I don't know the name and Hermione! If I was Voldemort I would have been upset and in the next movie I would start to killing people! So they won't leave him in the background!
In conclusion, it's a extremely difficult movie to summarize because the actions don't have a logical sequence, the scenes are cut by other ones that have nothing to do with the first one and often important things remain to be said because they're spaced for more than 10 minutes. Of course this happens in several movies, but I found some unnecessary cuts in this one.”
Don't miss out on his next review on the Deathly Hallows! If you haven't read the previous ones so far, you can find them over here:
- A No-Maj Ponders Potter: The Philosopher's Stone
- A No-Maj Ponders Potter: The Chamber Of Secrets
- A No-Maj Ponders Potter: The Prisoner of Azkaban
- A No-Maj Ponders Potter: The Goblet of Fire
- A No-Maj Ponders Potter: The Order of the Phoenix
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