Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (dir. David Yates 2009)

A few random thoughts on the new Harry Potter movie...

Warning: SPOILERS contained within. Only read this if you've already seen the movie, or don't care!

Went to see the new film last night and I loved it, though I did feel a bit like there were two scenes missing at the end (the fight between the Death Eaters and the kids/Aurors, and Dumbledore's funeral). I liked the extra bit at the Weasleys' house, but I was expecting Lupin to go all werewolf on the Death Eaters' collective asses, and was kinda disappointed when he didn't (because of Tonks' random reference to the first night of the cycle). That would've been cool. I loved how funny it was though - I was dreading all the teen romance, but it was done really well and it was hilarious. The felix felicis potion was also done really well - I think 'pincers' may be my favourite line in the film. ('Felix' means lucky, and 'felicis' is the genitive of 'felix', so I guess this means 'Lucky thing of lucky things'...) Also we finally got to see more of Snape and Draco, yay! (Mmmm, Alan Rickman).

There isn't as much Classics-y stuff in the last two books as in the earlier ones - something I'll talk about more when I do Book 7, which largely (though not entirely) substitutes it's own invented 'fairy tales' for actual myth or folklore. The main threat in Half-Blood Prince is more human than magic, though the wizards use magic instead of guns. The scene in the cave is reminiscent of a katabasis, that is, a part of the story where the hero goes down to the underworld, the land of the dead. The Greek underworld appears to welcome these visitors on a regular basis - Hercules, Theseus, Orpheus and Odysseus all pop down for a visit - and the scene showing all the Inferi (Potterverse zombies) surrounding Harry and Dumbledore and their tiny boat is definitely underworldy. (I want to do some more posts on pop culture examples of katabasis, so I won't say too much on that now!). A couple of my friends described the Inferi as 'all the Gollums' which I guess is a good point, though they looked somehow even grosser than Gollum to me. I did think that the Pensieve is looking more and more like Galadriel's mirror with each passing movie though.

I think Goblet of Fire is still my favourite of the films, and, unless the filmmakers do something amazing with the two parts of Deathly Hallows, I think it will stay that way. I really liked this one though, and I think it needs a second viewing to really enjoy it - on the second viewing, it's so much easier to just enjoy the film without constantly thinking about all the stuff that got moved around or taken out (and without the idiots who were sitting behind me and talked loudly all the way through the film). Oh, and I have to confess, I did cry a little bit - I was doing fine until everyone put their wands in the air to remove the Dark Mark with candle-like wandlight, at which point the tears started rolling!

Mmmm.