Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince

After numerous helpful suggestions and mentions in previous posts, the missus finally makes her official debut on the blog ...


Harry Potter & the Half Blood Prince happens to be my favorite book of the series and I just had to catch this movie on the first day. And was I disappointed or what! I still can’t believe how the scriptwriters managed to screw up the plot when they had one of the best-selling books ever as the basis for the screenplay! Really, there’s only so much that great cinematography and good acting can do for a movie. What’s really important is the story and when you screw that up there’s nothing much you can do.

I knew before I went to watch it, that the movie deviated quite a bit from the book, but I was still not prepared for what they had actually done. In all the Harry Potter movies some parts from the book are cut and granted that the film makers have the creative liberty to alter certain things. But that is not why this movie is bad. Its because they somehow managed to take a really engrossing tale and make it BORING and POINTLESS!

Coming to the actual story in the movie, you know something is wrong when in the first scene itself as Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) is sitting thinking about the dark terror being spread by Lord Voldemort’s supporters and he sees a pretty waitress and decides to ask her out! In an attempt to make the characters seem real and human (ok, as human as wizards can get), the film makers just lost it completely.

It seemed like everything that was important to take the main story forward, like Harry’s increasing involvement with the Half Blood Prince’s book and his insight into Voldemort’s early life, were all just secondary happenstance to the several budding romances between the teenage protagonists. The Ron-Lavender love story is funny for a while but it takes just much too unwanted space in the movie. And even Prof. Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) seemed to be more interested in discussing Harry’s love interests rather than Lord Voldemort with Harry. They miss out so many crucial points that you can’t figure out what’s happening if you haven’t read the book. Around me I could constantly hear those who had read the book whispering to their companions what was happening.

The pace does improve somewhat in the second half, and the scene in the dark cave when Harry & Dumbledore retrieve one of the “Horcruxes” is especially riveting and the highpoint of the movie. And just when I started thinking “finally something is happening”, the movie just ended in the next 5 minutes with what is arguably the most anti-climatic finishes ever!! I still can’t believe how big a letdown the ending was!

Performance-wise all the actors are competent, with Daniel Radcliffe putting in his best performance so far. And Helena Carter appears in a great cameo as Bellatrix Lestrange (btw she has done a similar scary & weird role before in Sweeney Todd). The Harry Potter movies usually have brilliant special effects and picturization and this installment is also not lacking in that aspect. But like I said before they are not enough to redeem the movie.

If you aren’t a Harry potter fan, stay as far away as possible from this movie because you’ll just come out confused and bored. If you are in the mood for some teenage high school romance, you are better off watching High School Musical or reading Archies Double Digest. And if you have read the books and are a Harry Potter fan like me, I guess you will want to watch it irrespective of what the reviews say, so go ahead, but you have been warned - There’s no magic in this movie, dark or otherwise.


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Watchmen

Every once in a while ... the entire universe is out to con you :) !!

Seriously !! When IMDB tells you that a superhero movie made by Zack Snyder (the maker of the ubercool 300) is rated at 8.0 by the users and newspaper reviews give it a thumbs up, you just cant wait for the weekend to come - atleast I couldnt !

And after the long wait, when the movie begins with an awesome hand-to-hand combat in the graphic style of 300, you possibly couldnt have asked for anything more !! But that joy starts getting replaced with confusion and then boredom and finally irritation - at the ridiculousness of it all. Even 300 was ridiculous, agreed. But it had the coolness which made up for it - which Watchmen has precious little of.

Set in an imaginary 1985 when the Cold War is still on, a group of ex-superheroes who were disbanded/retired from public life get stirred when one of them, The Comedian, gets murdered in the opening scene of Watchmen. The masked Rorschach decides to try and uncover the secret of the Comedian's death - with the suspicion that maybe someone was trying to targeting 'the masks' ...
His investigation and the subsequent events reveal that there exists a plan allright, but the identity of the orchestrator and the final motive is much more than what he had imagined.

The story weaves back and forth between the past and present as each of the superheroes are introduced and we are told about them in detail. The most striking characters are the dead Comedian and the blue Dr. Manhattan - who has some amazing superpowers. However, even though the characters are more gray than, lets say, a Spiderman - but they are as exciting as a potato !! While the Hulk or even the Ironman werent great superhero movies, but atleast they got you rooting for them !! This has to the most boring bunch of superheroes ever !

I can go on and on, but I will try to summarize what is wrong with this movie. Watchmen is a movie for the REAL movie connoisseur - the ones who can give a 6 hour lecture on the significance of the .... green pants of the Joker in The Dark Knight. I am not even sure there was a green pant, but you get the drift. People who will go gaga over how dark the movie setting is, which is a reflection of how flawed each superhero character is - how Rorschach is a borderline psychopath and how The Comedian, even though a despicable human being, understood humanity more than anybody else etc. If you are the kind who raves about these things, then the movie is for you.If you are a regular bloke (like me), then you wont get jackshit out of the movie :)


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Phoonk

(Watched it two weeks back but didnt get around to post a review)

One of the most over-hyped and unworthy releases of the year. Billed as a horror movie - it generated countless laughs as the audience found the directors desperate attempts for scaring rather silly. The trick of focusing on inanimate objects was used WAY too many times to elicit any other reaction other than derision.
Barring one genuinely scary scene with a mirror, there was nothing remotely scary in the movie. The actors do their role well, but with such a weak script - its not their fault

And the ending was just too zany - in short, nothing good in this movie ... go watch The Ring agian for some real horror :)

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The Mummy : Tomb of The Dragon Emperor

Lets say it wasnt the best movie of the Mummy trilogy. Actually thats being too polite - the movie sucked ! It has Brendan Fraser playing a dad to a 25 year old son (who is too cocky to be likeable - unlike the sidekicks in the Crystal Skull or Die Hard 4) - and lets face it, Brendan Fraser hardly looks 40 - how can he have a 25 year old son ? And as wifey points out Brendan was himself too self assured - he didnt have any of the goofiness that made him so endearing in the earlier movies or in Bedazzled.

The only laughs of the movie come from Brendan's brother-in-law Jonathan - and some of the mummy soldier antics in the final war. Rest of the movie is just trash - with no semblance of any sense or entertainment.

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