'Potter' poised to cast spell on B.O. 'Harry' expected to become top grossing franchise By PAMELA MCCLINTOCK
With the midnight bow of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday night, the Warner Bros.' "Harry Potter" film franchise is poised to become the most magical of all time -- at least in dollars and cents. The five previous "Harry Potter" pics have grossed $4.48 billion at the worldwide box office. That still trails the roughly $5 billion grossed by the James Bond film franchise (not accounting for inflation), but the boy wizard is expected to overtake agent 007 within the month.
The largest chunk of the franchise's total gross has come from overseas, where J.K. Rowling's book series has been translated into 67 languages.
"Half-Blood Prince" was originally set to open last November, but the studio pushed back the release. The postponement sparked an outcry from Potter fans that has morphed into pent-up demand around the world.
"Half-Blood Prince," the sixth installment in the franchise, goes out in approximately 4,300 theaters domestically and thousands more overseas in 64 territories, including every major market.
On Monday, MovieTickets.com reported 300 sold-out shows for "Half-Blood Prince" at the domestic B.O., including more than 950 midnight showings. That's more than the presales for this summer's "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen."
Online ticketing service Fandango reported that "Half-Blood Prince" is the fastest seller of the year and the biggest of any Potter title.
"Order of the Phoenix," released two years ago nearly to the day, grossed $44 million on its first day at the domestic B.O., including $12 million in midnight shows. Film's five-day opening gross was $139.7 million on its way to cuming $292 million domestically and $646 million overseas.
Film marks the second Potter outing for helmer David Yates, who directed "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix." He's also set to helm the final two films in the franchise, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I" and "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II."
The main cast returns in "Half-Blood Prince," while Jim Broadbent joins the franchise in the role of Professor Horace Slughorn.
Warners feels the July 15 release date for "Half-Blood Prince" gives it ideal positioning.
The freshest holdover is 20th Century Fox's 3-D toon "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs," which heads into its third weekend. "Dawn of the Dinosaurs" plays younger than a Potter pic, so it may not take much of a hit.
Because Imax was obligated to play "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" for at least two more weeks, "Half-Blood Prince" will only open in a handful of Imax theaters, including ones in L.A., New York and Chicago. Yates shot 15 minutes of the film using Imax cameras. Footage will be shown in Imax 3-D.
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Posted: Sun., Jul. 5, 2009, 11:44am PT New U.S. Release Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince By TODD MCCARTHY
A Warner Bros. release of a Heyday Films production. Produced by David Heyman, David Barron. Executive producer, Lionel Wigram. Co-producer, John Trehy. Directed by David Yates. Screenplay, Steve Kloves, based on the novel by J.K. Rowling.
Harry Potter - Daniel Radcliffe Ron Weasley - Rupert Grint Hermione Granger - Emma Watson Bellatrix Lestrange - Helena Bonham Carter Professor Horace Slughorn - Jim Broadbent Rubeus Hagrid - Robbie Coltrane Professor Albus Dumbledore - Michael Gambon Professor Severus Snape - Alan Rickman Professor Minerva McGonagall - Maggie Smith Wormtail - Timothy Spall Remus Lupin - David Thewlis Argus Filch - David Bradley Professor Filius Flitwick - Warwick Davis Draco Malfoy - Tom Felton
Kids' stuff is a thing of the past in "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince." Suddenly looking quite grown up, the students at Hogwarts are forced to grapple with heavy issues of mortality, memory and loss in this sixth installment in the series of bigscreen adaptations of J.K. Rowling's Potter tales. Dazzlingly well made and perhaps deliberately less fanciful than the previous entries, this one is played in a mode closer to palpable life-or-death drama than any of the others and is quite effective as such. Delayed by Warner Bros. from a late 2008 release date so as to spread the wealth after "The Dark Knight" scored so mightily last summer, this "Prince" is poised to follow its predecessors as one of the year's two or three top-earning films.
After sitting out "The Order of the Phoenix," screenwriter Steve Kloves happily returned to once again skillfully condense a massive book into manageable dramatic form; among many tough narrative decisions, he has cut back on the violent mayhem surrounding the murderous climax and put off the introduction of Minister of Magic Rufus Scrimgeour until the next episode.
Director David Yates, after a prosaic series debut on the prior film, displays noticeably increased confidence here, injecting more real-world grit into what began eight years ago as purest child's fantasy; messenger owls and chattering house elves have been superseded by a frank Underground tea-room flirtation, school security checks and raging teenage hormones. The sets have been stripped down to reduce Hogwarts' fairy-book aspects and emphasize its gray medieval character, and even the obligatory Quidditch match is staged with greater attention to spatial comprehensibility than ever before.
As the overarching story ramps up toward one major character's death at the end of part six and the final confrontation between Harry and archfiend Voldemort in the climactic "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," which is being shot as a two-part film, this increased seriousness is all to the good. It's hard to imagine watching "Half-Blood Prince" as a "Potter" virgin without a clue as to what's come before, but it's a formidable entry with a heft and cinematic texture compromised only by a certain lack of dramatic modulation.
With the villainess of the last picture, Dolores Umbridge, out of the way but the unseen Lord Voldemort in the ascendant, neither London, subject to a startling opening-scene Death Eater attack, nor Hogwarts itself can be regarded as safe from the Dark Lord's gathering storm. While Dumbledore takes Harry along to recruit former colleague Horace Slughorn to return to Hogwarts as new potions professor and, he hopes, to provide crucial revelations about Voldemort, Harry's student nemesis, Draco Malfoy, prepares to commit a heinous crime designed to pave the way for Voldemort's comeback.
While Harry remains mindful of his status as the "Chosen One," he is not entirely exempt from the lusts, jealousies and intrigues that preoccupy his fellow teenagers as never before. While Harry's growing fondness for Ron's sister Ginny is slowly developing, Ron is a sitting duck for the attentions of the irrepressible Lavender Brown. But, as we know, the brilliant Hermione unaccountably loves the comparatively slow-witted Ron, and she has only Harry's shoulder to cry on when he's not squiring space cadet Luna Lovegood.
But assessing the romantic entanglements is not nearly as much fun as simply beholding the big physical changes in the young actors, whose onscreen maturation will have been documented across the span of a decade when all is said and done. The biggest change since "Phoenix" two years ago has been registered by Tom Felton, who plays Malfoy; he's now a tall stringbean in the Jimmy Stewart mold, with a face that's come to resemble that of Jonathan Pryce, and he towers over Daniel Radcliffe's Harry, who looks to be the shortest person in the cast (not true when Imelda Staunton was around).
Rupert Grint, as Ron, has always looked a tad older than the others and continues to while showing more character. Emma Watson, perennially appealing as Hermione, has become a very attractive young woman, and Bonnie Wright's Ginny intrigues as the sort of initial plain Jane who keeps growing on you.
Joining such returning stalwarts as Michael Gambon, Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith, Robbie Coltrane and Warwick Davis among the Hogwarts staff is Jim Broadbent, who makes a terrific disguised entrance and is then simply grand as the eccentric old prof whom Harry presses for crucial insights into Voldemort; latter's student incarnation as Tom Riddle is seen in two crucial memory sequences.
It's this chapter in the Potter saga that obliges the always nasty but ambiguously motivated Severus Snape to show his true colors, and the indispensable Rickman delivers, as always, with line readings that are delicacies of the infinitely mordant kind. He is periodically egged on by the insidious Bellatrix Lestrange, a role Helena Bonham Carter plays with such mesmerizing abandon that one hopes the role fully pays off in the final chapter.
The particulars of Dumbledore's final quest with Harry could prove a bit confusing to the uninitiated, although there are unlikely to be many of those in the audience at this stage. Otherwise, the film is clear-headed and clean-lined; now that he's at home with the material, Yates has made a "Potter" picture that is less desperate to please than any of its predecessors, itself a sign of series maturity.
Among the always outstanding production values and top-drawer visual effects, special note should be made of series newcomer Bruno Delbonnel's exceptionally atmospheric cinematography and Nicholas Hooper's emotionally churning score, which contains only the slightest trace of John Williams' original themes.
After two PG-13-rated entries, this one has won a PG, matching the first three. At 153 minutes, "Half-Blood Prince" is the third-longest feature in the series and seems just about right; "Order of the Phoenix," at 138 minutes, actually felt too short.
Posts: 5425 | Location: "Stay Classy San Diego!" | Registered: June 15, 2006
The mood is dark. Death Eaters blight the skies, sent on their sorties by the fiendish Lord Voldemort, and in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, a grim fate encircles one teenage boy like a noose around his soul. The adult he reveres most in the world has given him a mission to destroy a hugely powerful wizard, yet as he gazes in a mirror, the quivering face staring back at him belies his resolve to do the deed. It's a dreadful burden on someone barely out of childhood, in his sixth year at Hogwarts. Will Draco Malfoy be able to do Voldemort's bidding and kill Albus Dumbledore?
From the publication of the first Harry Potter book in 1997 to the final volume a decade later, J.K. Rowling's septet of adventures has enchanted tens of millions of kids, their older siblings and all those adults who are as fascinated by the wizarding world as any child. The books held many delights for the very young: the Quidditch matches, magical beasts and wand work. But as Harry and his classmates entered puberty, Rowling began to address a time of grand and awful responsibilities, the transformation of the body before the mind is ready, the queasy realization that every decision can have ecstatic or cataclysmic consequences. In a word, adolescence.
The Potter film adaptations, after a subpar start in late 2001, have grown in richness and power until, in aggregate, they stand close to the summit of multipart movies — more sprawling if less artistically ambitious than The Lord of the Rings, more consistently intelligent though less original than the six Star Wars films. By the time the series is completed with a two-part telling of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, due to open in November 2010 and July 2011, its release cycle will be nearly as long as the 10 years Rowling took to publish her books.
Beyond its longevity records and the billions it has amassed in box-office and DVD revenues, the Harry Potter series is a proud, mammoth act of commercial, communal filmmaking. It's Hollywood at its finest, though the setting, accent, ensemble cast and most of the creative team are — as with the James Bond films — distinctly English.
With Half-Blood Prince, again we have a stalwart, satisfying visualization of the Rowling cosmos. Screenwriter Steve Kloves (his fifth Potter script) and director David Yates, the BBC veteran (State of Play, Sex Traffic) who also helmed Order of the Phoenix, concoct a potent brew of horror and romance, in which the supercool special effects — notably a swoopy-cam ride with the Death Eaters as they soar over London's monuments and through its creepiest streets — never obscure a commitment to the book's central theme. True to Rowling's portrayal of the teen experience, the film is almost wholly occupied with school: the business of getting good grades (sometimes by cheating) and the influence of inspiring or maleficent teachers. Plus, of course, sex. (Read about the phenomenon of "Wizard Rock.")
That's sex in a very PG, Potter fashion. The "snogging" engaged in by the 16-year-olds has a chaste, comic choreography, as if kissing were a minuet of locked lips. When Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) and his pal Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) talk furtively about the girls they're mad for, it's to acknowledge vaguely that they have "nice skin." And when our hero's notoriety makes the Hogwarts girls just wild about Harry, his friend-girl Hermione (Emma Watson) can't suppress a little sulfur puff of rancor. "She's only interested in you," Hermione snits about one lass, "because she thinks you're the Chosen One." Harry's playful reply has a matter-of-fact finality: "I am the Chosen One." That's his honor, curse and destiny.
Father Figures Three other Hogwarts boys — one in the present, two from the past — have virtually the same burden: they've been chosen to play crucial roles in the great conflict. One shadowy figure is a student whose old, annotated schoolbook, marked "Property of the Half-Blood Prince," helps Harry ace his potions course and perform some vital magic. The other, seen in flashbacks, is the brilliant, troubling Tom Riddle, Voldemort to be, whom Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) recruits from an orphanage to Hogwarts. As played at 11 by Hero Fiennes Tiffin (a nephew of Ralph Fiennes, the series' Voldemort) and at 16 by Frank Dillane, the lad emits a smooth, brooding dark-star quality that makes you wish there were a parallel group of coming-of-age books about You Know Who — Darth Vader to Harry's Luke Skywalker. As other boys face the surge of puberty, so Tom and Harry feel a thrill and a shiver at the dawning recognition of their immense powers.
And as Harry and Tom have mirror-image histories, so Harry and Draco (Tom Felton) here become like twins. One is good, one corrupted, but each is bent on avenging his father by annihilating the adult who killed or exiled him. (The story is really about the risks boys take for the grown-ups whose favor they cherish.) In earlier chapters, Draco was simply the upper-class bully. Now that he's Voldemort's chosen one, there's fear in his sneer. When he nears the man he's supposed to murder, he blurts out, "I have to kill you, or he's gonna kill me" — and you can feel sympathy for the devil's disciple.
With most parents (except for Draco's mother and the Weasleys) absent from the action, the Hogwarts teachers are the guardians of youth. They're not all suited to the job; some are foolish, some sinister. The new teacher, Horace Slughorn (Jim Broadbent), runs a salon for his pet students. An incorrigible name dropper, he "collects" children whose talent or connections might bring him glory. The resentful Snape (Alan Rickman, effortlessly oily), whose motives have been murky but whom Dumbledore continues to trust, becomes Draco's surrogate dad: snake for snake.
The deepest kinship, man to boy, is Dumbledore's with Harry. From the start, when the dean of wizards puts a protective arm around Harry, to the probing trips they take through time and space, Dumbledore is Harry's true godfather — a role into which the great Gambon pours his craggy majesty and cello voice. One might wish that their visit to Voldemort's cave had the shuddering poignancy it does in the book, where a weakened Dumbledore tells his protégé, "I am not worried, Harry. I am with you." But their scenes together cast a lingering spell.
In the final films, the boy will grow into the holy warrior. Those climactic works couldn't have a stronger prelude than Half-Blood Prince — an evocation, not leering but knowing, of adolescence under siege.
Posts: 27161 | Location: Phoenix, AZ | Registered: February 02, 2003
Audiences are bound for adventure with a well-crafted film that is faithful to its rambunctious book and deeply attached to its actors.
By Kenneth Turan FILM CRITIC >>> July 14, 2009 "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" is being described as an excursion into the dark side for this venerable series, but don't let the chatter fool you. Now in its sixth episode shot over an eight-year span, with two more features still to come, this one-of-a-kind film cycle has become as comfortable and reliable as an old shoe, providing a degree of dependability that's becoming increasingly rare.
As directed by David Yates, who did the previous film and is on tap for the final two, "Half-Blood Prince" demonstrates the ways that the Potter pictures have become the modern exemplars of establishment moviemaking. We don't turn to these films for thrilling or original cinema, we look for a level of craft, consistency and, most of all, fidelity to the originals -- all of which we get.
Yes, the Death Eaters in thrall to Lord Voldemort, "the most dangerous dark wizard of all time," are on the march and threatening Hogwarts and all it stands for, but those who've read the books know how all that plays out. It's not chills or suspense audiences are asking for here, but respectful familiarity.
It's only the phenomenal success of the books that has made all this possible, that has ensured a loyal audience for each film, an audience that has invested so much emotion, not to mention time, in the ongoing Potter saga that skipping an episode is out of the question. That's a kind of brand loyalty that's all but gone out of style.
That investment of time also means we've been watching the film's trio of youthful principals -- Daniel Radcliffe as Harry, Rupert Grint as sidekick Ron Weasley and Emma Watson as brainy Hermione Granger -- grow up on screen since 2001. They've become as familiar as family members, and "Half-Blood Prince" trades on that connection to keep us involved when things get slow.
This bond is especially necessary in those sections of the film in which the Hogwarts gang goes through the agonies of teenage romantic attachment. Is Harry getting serious about Ginny Weasley (Bonnie Wright)? Will Ron be too busy with Lavender Brown (Jessie Cave) to care? Or to so much as notice that his pal Hermione is pining away just for him? It's not clear who suffers more here, the kids navigating this "High School Confidential" universe or audiences having to endure it with them.
Fortunately, there's more to "Half-Blood Prince" than youthful heartache. Evildoers like Bellatrix Lestrange (Helena Bonham Carter) and young Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton) scheme dark schemes, and though Voldemort doesn't appear as an adult, the film has a pair of memory flashbacks in which we see him as Tom Riddle, the evilest boy who ever was.
As for Harry, he has serious tasks of his own to attend to. He has to help recruit faculty member Horace Slughorn (Jim Broadbent), deal with an old textbook powerfully annotated by the mysterious Half-Blood Prince, and rise to the occasion when Professor Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) ups the ante and says to him, "Once again I must ask too much of you."
The addition of the excellent Broadbent to a cast that includes, besides Gambon and Bonham Carter, such fine British performers as Maggie Smith, Robbie Coltrane and David Thewlis, underlines the Potter films' ongoing status as a comprehensive guide to contemporary U.K. acting. First among equals in "Half-Blood Prince" is Alan Rickman as the monumentally unpleasant Professor Severus Snape, dripping disdain when he eviscerates Harry with lines like, "How grand it must be to be the chosen one."
Also helping keep things professional are screenwriter Steve Kloves, returning after taking the last film off, and director Yates. A veteran of British TV responsible for such highly respected fare as the original miniseries version of "State of Play," Yates in his second Potter film seems more comfortable with the franchise. He's turned out to be what the series has always felt it needed, a good steward of the material who is respectful of the novels but not overly reverential.
As they head toward the closing episodes -- Part 1 of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" will come out in 2010, Part 2 in 2011 -- it becomes clearer and clearer that these films are a law unto themselves: cozy tales told around a cinematic campfire that have managed to reach out to the world.
kenneth.turan@latimes.com
Posts: 27161 | Location: Phoenix, AZ | Registered: February 02, 2003
A ***1/2 out of **** review from ASSOCIATED PRESS...
Movie Review: Latest 'Harry Potter' looks like best one yet
By David Germain Associated Press
Harry Potter has kept his fans waiting for two years, the longest school break they have had to endure for a new movie adventure about the teen wizard.
It's been worth the wait.
"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," the sixth movie in the fantasy franchise based on J.K. Rowling's books, is the franchise's best so far, blending rich drama and easy camaraderie among the actors with the visual spectacle that until now has been the real star of the series.
The hocus-pocus of it all nearly takes a back seat to the story and characters this time, and the film is the better for that. It doesn't skimp on the Quidditch action, sorcery duels or occult pyrotechnics, but those are simply part of the show, not the main attraction.
Previous installments played out in a supernatural bubble bearing little connection to our ordinary little Muggle world.
"Half-Blood Prince" brims with authentic people and honest interaction: hormonal teens bonding with great humor, heartache that will resonate with anyone who remembers the pangs of first love.
Drop the magic act, and Hogwarts could be any school of self-absorbed geeks, jocks, popular kids and outcasts trying to maneuver through the day. Even the class bad boy provides insight into the behavior of bullies.
"Half-Blood Prince" escalates the peril for Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) and his best pals, Hermione Granger (Emma Watson) and Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint), while giving the threesome who first collaborated as prepubescent kids their best platform yet to show their maturing acting chops.
David Yates, who made 2007's "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," returns to direct, his deepening confidence and comfort with the Potter realm on display throughout.
Three distinctive directors – Chris Columbus, Alfonso Cuarón and Mike Newell – made the first four movies. Along with Yates on No. 5, the filmmakers all brought their own touches and baubles, but there was a sameness about the series that was growing tiresome by Yates' first one.
This time, Yates stays true to the Rowling recipe yet infuses the film with a freshness and energy that make it seem like a new start, not the stale old Chapter 6 it could have been.
Though the movie drags a bit toward the end, screenwriter Steve Kloves – who adapted the first four books and returns after a one-film hiatus – generally keeps the intricate plot rolling breathlessly.
Harry's big challenge this school year is a clandestine assignment by Hogwarts headmaster Dumbledore (Michael Gambon), who enlists his protégé to retrieve a critical memory that new Professor Horace Slughorn (Jim Broadbent) possesses about young Tom Riddle, the future dark Lord Voldemort.
Academy Award winner Broadbent gives the best performance yet in a "Harry Potter" flick, mingling a ****-of-the-walk flamboyance with the deep melancholy of a teacher bearing the shame of disappointment in both himself and a star pupil gone bad.
The usual teen high jinks and crises lighten the story with plenty of laughs. Romantic entanglements – which have gradually preoccupied Harry, Hermione, Ron and other classmates as they stumbled into puberty – burst out like a wicked case of acne this year.
Ron is dating bubbleheaded bimbo Lavender Brown (Jessie Cave), putting Hermione into a jealous snit. Harry's got his own love triangle, falling for Ron's sister, Ginny (Bonnie Wright), who's dating another student.
Along with a romantic rival, Harry has a more dangerous foe in Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton), his bullying tormentor, now a torn and troubled youth himself as an agent of Voldemort.
Radcliffe, Watson and Grint have lived these roles for so long – almost half their lives – that Harry, Hermione and Ron seem like second nature to them. Whether their acting careers flourish after "Harry Potter" or not, they have left an impressive little body of work with these three characters alone, developing them into full-blooded youths that feel real despite their fantastical surroundings.
Most fans know the shocker in store involving Dumbledore and the ominous Professor Snape (Alan Rickman). Like their young co-stars, Gambon and Rickman live and breathe these characters by now, Dumbledore a towering presence of grace and nobility, Snape a delightful cold fish whose actions reveal his tiger-shark stripes.
Others among the returning favorites are Robbie Coltrane as Harry's mountainous ally Hagrid, Maggie Smith as prim Professor McGonagall, Julie Walters as Ron and Ginny's genial mom, Evanna Lynch as ditzy Luna Lovegood, and Helena Bonham Carter, who's a wicked wonder as Bellatrix Lestrange, one of Voldemort's fiercest fanatics.
Visual-effects technology definitely has caught up with Rowling's imagination – and the filmmakers have some rowdy fun with their splendid images.
Director Yates is also making the two-part adaptation of the seventh and final book, the movies due out in November 2010 and July 2011. "Half-Blood Prince" should leave fans as eager for those last movies as a high school junior is for graduation day.
Posts: 27161 | Location: Phoenix, AZ | Registered: February 02, 2003
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is spellbinding, even though it is more grounded in reality and less fanciful than previous installments.
David Yates has grown more assured in his direction since his last film, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. In this sixth film in the series, the cinematography is stunning, and the story unfolds in a stately and unhurried fashion.
Captivating from the first frame, this Potter feels more epic than previous films, which had a less mature, more madcap quality. Yates finds an artful way to meld the teenage romance and inherent humor with a sense of impending doom.
Half-Blood Prince conveys some of the rich texture and depth of J.K. Rowling's book, but it takes a lackluster turn at the end. In a key scene, Harry is rendered more ineffectual than his literary counterpart as a result of plot revisions.
Presumably Yates decided on a less-is-more finale by underplaying the book's climactic tragedy, perhaps because readers already had been rocked by the event. Though this makes sense, it leaves the die-hard fan with a sense of anticlimax.
Yates clearly has a vision for the films, and he has sharpened it with this incarnation. The somber mood suits the story's dark tone. We see less random magic and more mature reflection, which is rare for a fantasy. The entire film is shot through with a sense of gravity and portent.
The wizards are now 16, in their penultimate year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Though he is seen only through others' memories, Lord Voldemort's ominous presence is distinctly felt. He has assembled a cadre of malevolent henchmen, who menace the wizarding and Muggle (non-magical) worlds.
Hogwarts is no longer the refuge it had been for Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) and his pals, Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson). Meanwhile, the surly Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton) is skulking off in the school's cavernous corridors, struggling with a terrible mission.
Harry works with Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) to thwart Voldemort and the encroachment of his evil dominion. Dumbledore assigns his protégé to cozy up to Professor Slughorn (Jim Broadbent) and access a key memory to aid in his fight.
Though Half-Blood Prince is one of the series's best, with spectacular effects, nuanced performances and witty dialogue, its dialed-down adaptation of Rowling's conclusion ends what might have been a masterful work with a measure of disappointment.
Posts: 27161 | Location: Phoenix, AZ | Registered: February 02, 2003
Are we there yet? Well, not quite. “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” the latest big-screen iteration of the global phenomenon, is merely the sixth chapter in a now eight-part series that, much like its young hero, played by Daniel Radcliffe, has begun to show signs of stress around the edges, a bit of fatigue, or maybe that’s just my gnawing impatience. Not that the director David Yates doesn’t keep things moving and flying and soaring, his cameras slashing through the gloom that has settled onto this epic endeavor like a damp, enveloping fog and at times threatened to snuff out its joy as terminally as a soul-sucking Dementor.
That any sense of play and pleasure remains amid all the doom and the dust, the poisonous potions and murderous sentiments, is partly a testament to the remarkable sturdiness of this movie franchise, which has transformed in subtle and obvious fashion, changing in tandem with the sprouting bodies and slowly evolving performances of its young, now-teenaged characters. The series is now almost as old (it took off in 2001) as Harry was when he started his journey, which found the 10-year-old whisked from a cramped, tragic nook in a staircase cupboard to Hogwarts, a school of witchcraft and wizardry in a parallel world teaming with wondrous creatures, including an embarrassment of lavishly talented British screen actors.
Surgically adapted by Steven Kloves, who has written all the screenplays save for No. 5, “The Half-Blood Prince” was to be the penultimate film, the corollary to the J. K. Rowling book. Instead, the concluding volume, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” has been deemed hefty enough by Warner Brothers — 784 hardcover pages, 2.4 pounds shipping weight, a fight to the death — to be split into two movies that will hit in fall 2010 and spring 2011. Considering that Harry Potter and His Big Pot of Cinematic Gold has raked in almost four and a half billion dollars in international box office, the studio’s reluctance to embrace the end is touchingly obvious. But, seriously, could we just get on with it? For at least one committed follower of the series, who closed the last chapter on Harry soon after “The Deathly Hallows” was published in 2007, the lag time between the final books and the movies has drained much of the urgency from this screen adaptation, which, far more than any of the previous films, feels like an afterthought. Mr. Yates, who directed the last movie, “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” which also arrived in summer 2007, does a fine job of keeping Ms. Rowling’s multiple parts in balanced play, nimbly shifting between the action and the adolescent soap operatics. Yet even with a surer directorial touch, he can’t keep the whole thing from feeling like filler.
Not that he doesn’t juice the material for all it’s worth, starting with some preliminary mayhem meant to signal that this isn’t your 10-year-old’s Harry Potter. After a nod to the last movie’s big finish, with Harry bloodied but victorious, the new picture opens in London, where an office filled with humans (Muggles, in Rowling-speak) are staring out the high-rise windows — as slack-jawed, presumably, as those filling theater seats — at sinister gray clouds surging in the sky. Suddenly, three plumes of black smoke, Death Eaters in fast, fuming motion, cut through the moody overhead dome, race through the streets and wobble the pedestrian-only Millennium Bridge that slings across the Thames, snapping cables, fatally upending human bodies and further unnerving the wizardly world.
If you haven’t been keeping up with the story, well, there’s always Wikipedia. Although Mr. Kloves has done an admirable job tailoring Ms. Rowling’s progressively longer and baggier books, he or, perhaps more accurately, the series’ producers have not made many concessions for the uninitiated. If you have kept pace, you will grasp why Dumbledore (the invaluable Michael Gambon), the headmaster of Hogwarts, has placed so much trust in Harry, a callow young student with prodigious wizard gifts and little discernable personality. The chosen one, Harry has been commissioned to destroy the too-little-seen evildoer, Voldemort, a sluglike ghoul usually played by Ralph Fiennes (alas, seen only briefly this time out) and here played as well by the excellent young actors Hero Fiennes Tiffin and Frank Dillane.
There must be a factory where the Brits mint these: Hero, who plays the dark lord as a spectrally pale, creepy child of 11, is Ralph Fiennes’s nephew, and Frank is the son of the terrific actor Stephen Dillane (Thomas Jefferson in the HBO mini-series “John Adams”). The younger Mr. Dillane, who plays Voldemort at 16, suggests the seductiveness of evil with small, silky smiles he bestows like dangerous gifts on Jim Broadbent’s Horace Slughorn, a professor whose trembling jowls suggest a deeper tremulousness. When Slughorn, the fear almost visibly leaking from his body, shares the secret of immortality with Voldemort, you feel, much as when Ralph Fiennes raged through “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” in 2005, that something vital is at stake.
If that sense of exigency rarely materializes in “The Half-Blood Prince” it’s partly because the series finale is both too close and too far away and partly because Mr. Radcliffe and his co-stars Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, as Harry’s friends Hermione and Ron, have grown up into three prettily manicured bores. Unlike the veterans, notably the sensational Alan Rickman, who invests his character, Professor Severus Snape, with much-needed ambiguity, drawing each word out with exquisite luxury, bringing to mind a buzzard lazily pulling at entrails, Mr. Radcliffe in particular proves incapable of the most crucial cinematic magic. Namely the alchemical transformation of dialogue into something that feels like passion, something that feels real and true and makes you feel just as wild about Harry as all those charmingly dark forces.
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WILLIAM PETERSEN: Well, this is a shock. The only explanation for this is that somehow in the last year, every one of you tried to act with rubber gloves and tweezers.
Posts: 6617 | Location: NY | Registered: December 01, 2002
I am not sure I understand Manohla's complaining that there is a lack of joy to the film. Is there supposed to be joy in this story? The book felt very dark and sad to me.
Anyway, I just counted at least 75 sold out midnight showings in Phoenix metro. So, I am sure that the earlier Variety number of 300 nationwide sell-outs is going to climb much, much higher.
Don't mind BTN. He's been down on the Harry Potter franchise ever since Chris Columbus stopped directing. He's been bitter about it ever since. You won't catch him posting a single positive review.
Originally posted by LadyHathor25: I am not sure I understand Manohla's complaining that there is a lack of joy to the film. Is there supposed to be joy in this story? The book felt very dark and sad to me.
Anyway, I just counted at least 75 sold out midnight showings in Phoenix metro. So, I am sure that the earlier Variety number of 300 nationwide sell-outs is going to climb much, much higher.
I bought advance tickets to a 7 PM show tomorrow with my cousins. My one cousin showed interest in the midnight show but I was worried I would fall asleep seeing it that late no matter how much I liked it. Stupid full day of work, spoiling my fun!
Ummmm... how could anyone prefer the stiff, slow moving Chris Columbus "Harry Potter" films compared to the much more cinematic and darker later films? As the series keeps improving the first two films look worse and worse.
Posts: 27161 | Location: Phoenix, AZ | Registered: February 02, 2003
Indeed, Pacinofan. I can't even watch those first two films anymore. They look awful now. I am definitely going to a midnight show. I scored tickets to the midnight showing at Cine Capri. Woo hoo!
Well whatever BTN's personal feelings are about the movies the NYTimes review is a valid one to post. I thought Manohla had some interesting things to say. I am just not sure I understand her complaining that the film lacks "play and pleasure remains amid all the doom and the dust, the poisonous potions and murderous sentiments". She says something like "gloom has settled on to the films and has threatened to cut off their joy."
Well, that is kind of the point, isn't it? These later books are dark. They are gloomy. Bad stuff happens.
I WANT this movie to be dark, scary and gloomy. That is what the book is about. I don't want jokes and silly teen romance humor. And it isn't like Harry Potter is feeling a lot of joy about being a wizard in this book. That is kind of the point of the series, no? It opens with Harry being so glad to be rescued from the awful Dursleys, excited to explore this seemingly fantastic world of magic. But, as the series develops we find out things are so great in this magical world. It has problems. It is dangerous. Terrible things happen.
Anyway, I just found this an off thing to criticize. The movie cannot be dark enough for me. I think this is the darkest, heaviest book in the series, thematically.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: LadyHathor25,
Originally posted by pacinofan: Ummmm... how could anyone prefer the stiff, slow moving Chris Columbus "Harry Potter" films compared to the much more cinematic and darker later films? As the series keeps improving the first two films look worse and worse.
I agree although i don't dislike the first films the best harry potter movies are the ones more darker and to me the third one still the best one. I think that is the first one to get the PG 13 after that the harry potter films have been consistantly good and with more suspence and mystery.
Originally posted by LadyHathor25: Indeed, Pacinofan. I can't even watch those first two films anymore. They look awful now. I am definitely going to a midnight show. I scored tickets to the midnight showing at Cine Capri. Woo hoo!
Well whatever BTN's personal feelings are about the movies the NYTimes review is a valid one to post. I thought Manohla had some interesting things to say. I am just not sure I understand her complaining that the film lacks "play and pleasure remains amid all the doom and the dust, the poisonous potions and murderous sentiments". She says something like "gloom has settled on to the films and has threatened to cut off their joy."
Well, that is kind of the point, isn't it? These later books are dark. They are gloomy. Bad stuff happens.
I WANT this movie to be dark, scary and gloomy. That is what the book is about. I don't want jokes and silly teen romance humor. And it isn't like Harry Potter is feeling a lot of joy about being a wizard in this book. That is kind of the point of the series, no? It opens with Harry being so glad to be rescued from the awful Dursleys, excited to explore this seemingly fantastic world of magic. But, as the series develops we find out things are so great in this magical world. It has problems. It is dangerous. Terrible things happen.
Anyway, I just found this an off thing to criticize. The movie cannot be dark enough for me. I think this is the darkest, heaviest book in the series, thematically.
I also don't get the reviewer complaining about the lag between the publishing of the book and the filming of the movie, what exactly has that got to do with what she saw on the screen? You would think the NY times could find a reviewer who could make more pertinent comments than that.
As far as thinking the main young actors had grown up to "prettily manicure bored," well she's entitled to her opinion but remember looks, especially of those young folks is what sells and as long as they can get the dialog out in a reasonably coherent fashion with some modicum of believability, it's probably going to be OK, given the supporting cast they have.
As for BTN's penchant for running up negative reviews, let him keep looking. According to Rotten Tomatoes this is the only professional reviewer who has panned it so far. of course if he wants togo reaching he can post the 11 year old from Colorado who gave it a so-so review (though I'm not sure if it was the movie or the video game he was reviewing)
Darkness is visible from the outset of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The Death Eaters mobilized by the return of Lord Voldemort at the end of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix are on the loose in London, streaking through an anxious metropolis on missions of urban destruction that, in a different fantasy cosmos, might challenge the talents of Batman. Thunder rattles a gray sky; the camera alights on a heavyhearted young man reading his newspaper in a sad subway café out of an old Edward Hopper painting while he ogles a pretty waitress out of modern multiracial England. Yet there's cause for audience spirits to be high: The universally recognizable fellow is Harry Potter, embodied in blossoming manhood by Daniel Radcliffe. The newspaper is The Daily Prophet, that model of innovative print journalism in which every photo not only tells a story, but morphs into a moving picture, too. And it's abundantly clear that director David Yates, returning to the magical realm after Order of the Phoenix, and indispensable Potter screenwriter Steve Kloves (he's written all but the Phoenix script) have perfected a crucial potion: They've found just the right balance of timeless spiritual profundity and contemporary teen specificity, of awe and humor, necessary to steer J.K. Rowling's enthralling seven-book saga to a satisfying conclusion. Will Hermione (Emma Watson) attract Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint)? Will Ron kiss flouncy, pouncy Lavender Brown (Jessie Cave)? Will Harry connect with Ron's no-longer-such-a-kid sister, Ginny (Bonnie Wright)? And will good triumph over evil? Stick around till Yates and Kloves' final two-part Potter production, scheduled for 2010 and 2011, and find out.
Even loyal readers who enjoy the gift of clairvoyance may appreciate a reminder or two about the plot of Half-Blood Prince. Just before Harry is set to return to Hogwarts, the star student is recruited by venerable headmaster Albus Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) for a mission. The old wizard wants to lure the retired Potions professor Horace Slughorn (Jim Broadbent, doing a juicy inside-out version of his role in Topsy-Turvy) back to Hogwarts to find out what the vain old goat remembers about a certain former star student named Tom Riddle. (Long story short for Muggles: Riddle became Voldemort.) In the meantime, Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton) is being groomed to do some major evil. And Prof. Severus Snape (Alan Rickman) appears to have Draco's back — as well as the most delicious ability to. clip. his. words.
All the while, the teenage wizards-in-training have enough to handle just being regular teens under the spell of raging hormones. ''Excuse me, I have to go and vomit,'' Hermione announces with a bite worthy of Gossip Girl when she observes Ron getting all snoggy with Lavender, who's one of the great lovestruck steamrollers of teen literature. And anyone who has survived 12th grade has passed a pale individualist classmate like Evanna Lynch's Luna Lovegood in the hallway, or encountered an imperious dragon-lady teacher like Maggie Smith's Minerva McGonagall.
On the other hand, not many teens face a hero's quest as daunting as the one set for Harry, with a showdown scheduled for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Half-Blood Prince encompasses important plot developments involving both love and death. But the story is, still and all, only a pause, deferring an intensely anticipated conclusion. And it's in that exquisite place of action and waiting that this elegantly balanced production emerges as a model adaptation. By now, as played with utmost loyalty to the cause by some of Britain's most illustrious actors, the supporting characters are as familiar as the population of Homer Simpson's neighborhood (and that's a great compliment). Yet with a big assist from cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel — a Potter newbie who memorably shot Amélie and Across the Universe — the filmmakers have found a way to refresh our eyes and enhance our appreciation for this rich, amazing creation. A-
Posts: 27161 | Location: Phoenix, AZ | Registered: February 02, 2003
Originally posted by stevie: Don't mind BTN. He's been down on the Harry Potter franchise ever since Chris Columbus stopped directing. He's been bitter about it ever since. You won't catch him posting a single positive review.
Ha, I remember BTN all the way from Awards Daily back under the old name. I always wondered what happened to the Lord of the Rings fanatic that posted there and here during the time that particular movie series was being released and in competition for Academy Awards, something Mistress. If she(?) were still around I think that she and Pucifer would make for a delightfully evil villain duo of Oscar prognosticating.
I think Rickman will have his best Material in the last two films and I can easily see a nomination for him. The movies in general will struggle harder but I hope that at least the very last one is recognized just for the the incredible daring these producers have shown, and foresight. It's been what, 10 years? That's pretty remarkable.
Saw a midnight showing of this last night, and all I can say is WOW. Definately the most adult and dark story yet. I've never read any of the books, so I don't know whether or not the film stayed true to its roots, but then again I don't really care. This film was awesome. The cinematography was just gorgeous. The acting was top notch, especially by standout Rickman. This one lacked a lot of the magic that we've come to expect, but not in filmmaking. My only complaints was that I wish there was a tad bit more action(although there was lots of comedy) and my 2nd complaint is that **SPOILER** Dumbledores death scene seemed a bit lacking. Other then that this movie was top notch and I could totally see this film gaining a best pic nomination.
