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Wednesday, July 15, 2009

MIdnight Magic

Yes, we are some of those crazy people who bought tickets for the very first showing of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince...OK, I bought the tickets and son A and grson N came with LOL. I guess I was one of the oldest people there at the theater and I know I was the oldest with a Harry Potter shirt on! LOL

I love that this particular theater allows you to reserve seating so that we could arrive about 1/2 hour before the show began and not have to sit in the horrible seats. We had prime seats close to the middle on the first row in the upper section of theater 1. I understand that the show was a sell out in all 8 theaters and DS A overheard that one of the theaters had been "double booked" so that 200 people were turned away! How Awful for them.

It was fun to see how many were dressed up in costumes and were a bit hyper...even grson N said that he was surprised that there were bigger Harry fans than me! LOL We didn't do a preshow party this time at the house but when DD B comes and we go to the IMAX theater as a family I will go all out with a party for that.

Now for my review....WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING WARNING
SPOILERS IN THE REST OF THIS POST!
IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW SOME OF THE PLOT POINTS OR DETAILS DON'T READ ANY FURTHER....

Over all the movie was great and I will be excited to see it again soon.
The Good:
The "kid" actors are getting better and better and really seem to know their characters better each film
The new characters were great especially Prof Slughorn. He had just the right touch of hero worship and kind of a humility if you can call it that, to capture the character nicely. The werewolf Greyback was wonderfully menacing but didn't have much more to do other than be in the background so you don't really understand who the heck he is anyway...unfortunately and Lavender was so funny and although prettier than I had in my mind really did the "girlfriend" roll for Ron perfectly...wish they had shown the scene where Ron gets the necklace for Christmas...it is a funny one in the book OH and the kid who plays a young Tom Riddle is very very creepy and did an excellent job in capturing the evil Dark Lord to be.
I loved the little touches that weren't in the book but added some funny or poignant moments like when Ginny and Harry share a pie at Christmas and how she is there in the background supporting him without being in the scene too much.
It was beautiful looking and the Scottish scenery was great
The Felix Felicis where Harry first discovers the HBP was perfect and then when he uses the potion on Ron...sort of...and the aftermath were well done.
This is the first movie with Michael Gambon playing Dumbledore that I really felt that he "got" the character correct. None of the yelling or strangeness from Goblet of Fire in this film thank goodness

The Not So Good
OK...I really didn't understand the point of the attack on The Burrow... It didn't move the story along other than showing times were dangerous but you kind of figured that from the opening scene...and it was really out of place
The Burrow is supposed to be protected from the Deatheaters and somehow Bellatrix and Greyback manage to attack it??? I was just puzzled and annoyed at the scene

The MOST disappointing part was the lack of a battle at Hogwarts after the death of ....OK I won't spoil it if you don't know who dies. I thought there would be an exciting wizzard battle involving the kids and deatheaters who manage to get into Hogwarts with Draco's help but NOTHING! This was where Bill gets his scars...nadda...and where some of the kids really have to grow up even more fighting off the deatheaters...such a NON happening.
Sigh...

So I am looking forward to seeing it again soon so that I can concentrate on details that I didn't notice this time LOL
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3 comments:

Cathi said...

I'm glad to read your review -- I want to see it but will probably wait until it's out on DVD. The theatre(s) it's playing at here don't have the reserved seating so it's a bit too much of a guessing game as to whether one can get a good seat. :-)

Dena said...

Well, like you, my husband and I are big fans of the Harry Potter series. We haven't seen the new one yet but plan on taking our two oldest grandsons to it.

B+B said...

Brett took me to see the movie on Thurs. and we took Little man too. Alex did pretty good for half of the movie & then Brett took him out for the rest! I love my hubby. I missed a few scenes but over all I like it. I agree about your too dislikes. I really wanted to see a battle scene. What were those people thinking?