This week’s theme is epic deaths. Coincidentally, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince comes out this week as well. In case you haven’t read the book and have been living under a Harry Potter-free rock, a very major and epic character dies at the end of it. I’ll try not to spoil it.

For the uninitiated, this is the 6^th movie in the series and shows us the sixth year that Harry and Classmates spend at Hogwarts school of withcraft and wizardry. Evil is on the rise in the wizarding world to the point of it spilling out into the muggle world. Harry returns to school ready to learn the knowledge needed to finally defeat Lord Voldemort. Anyone who has read the books knows this is the very short, short set up for the book/movie.

This movie is easily my favorite of the series thus far. It blends and balances humor, adolescent awkwardness, drama, and suspense together practically perfectly. You have the main characters acting like normal teenagers with all the pitfalls of hormones, dating, and snogging (make-out sessions for the yanks). So the best parts are…in no particular order: humor, Slughorn, Snape, and Malfoy. Let’s break it down.

The humor in this movie is appropriate and well timed and executed. Some of you may remember my review of Ice Age 3. One of my main complaints was that the humor was too vulgar for a kid’s movie. This movie, by contrast, has a couple of “mature” jokes but they are subtle in the way British humor can be with more wit and layers of meaning. Let me give you an example. Ron is trying out for the quidditch team. He is competing against a bigger, jockier Cormac McLaggen for the keeper position. They are also showing off for the girls in the audience. Cormac is given what seems to be an overly large and girthy broomstick while Ron has a more modest model. Now had the makers of Ice Age made this movie, an attractive female character would probably offer to wax Cormac’s broomstick and Ron’s broomstick would droop (magically) in disappointment. As you can see, the same comparison of broomsticks to genitals was made but Harry Potter comes out on top for subtlety and tact. The humor in this movie stems from the awkwardness of youth. That time in your life when you start to notice members of the opposite sex. I don’t really want to spoil too many of the jokes but I will say that the scenes with Lavender Brown are awesome. That girl has some comedic chops. The last thing I’ll say about the humor is that it does a good job of lightening the mood away from some of the heavier events happening around it. In some films, humor can be disjointed and off putting, breaking the tension and losing the audience. This movie has none of that. You go from serious to funny and back again without losing focus or flow of narrative.

The acting performances stood out in this film. The films have always been a who’s who of classically trained British actors from Alan Rickman to Maggie Smith and this installment is no exception. The new addition to the cast this time around is Jim Broadbent as potions teacher, Professor Slughorn. Broadbent plays the role almost exactly as I pictured him while I was reading the book. You get a real sense of someone who carries a very deep shame and regret and is fighting to keep it a secret. All the other actors give the same quality performances that we have come to expect from them. I do want to give specific kudos to a couple of performers, Alan Rickman, and Tom Felton. Rickman is given quite a few more scenes in this one and pretty much steals any scene he’s in. He even steals scenes where he’s just in the background as you can just imagine what his character is thinking. Oh the scorn and disgust. As a disclaimer, I have been a huge fan of Rickman’s work since Die Hard and Robin Hood Prince of Thieves. The other performance that bears mention is Tom Felton as Draco Malfoy. This time around Malfoy is given whole new levels of character. He really moves from being just a jerky bully to that borderline between evil and good. You really see him struggle with the task he has to complete. Nowhere is it more apparent than in the final scenes. If you’ve read the book you know what I’m talking about. Felton plays it just like the character would, given all that’s happened so far. Not to leave them out, the main actors are good as well. This cast has really matured well as the movies go along. The movies get more complex and so do their performances.

What’s not so good you ask?

Harry Potter purists may take offense at all the material left out of the film. But that wasn’t my problem. I’ve always seen the films as a supplement to the books. The only problem I had was the lack of half blood prince storyline. In case you haven’t read the book, Harry comes into the possession of a potions textbook that was once owned by a self proclaimed “half blood prince” (hbp). Hpb left thorough notes in the margin of said textbook that basically carry Harry through potions class. In the end, Harry becomes very attached to the book and begins to relate to the character of hbp. Then he finds out who it is and is shaken by the revelation. The problem the film had was that it didn’t have the time to develop the relationship Harry had with hbp. So, the revelation at the end feels very tacked on and out of left field. If they could have gotten away with it, the makers might have been better off to drop some of it and then rename the movie. Really that’s a small complaint in a film this good. I will say one thing, though. If you haven’t read the books or seen the movies in a while you may want to get caught up a little before seeing this film so that you can remind yourself of all the characters.

So far I’ve done a pretty good job of avoiding spoilers. From now on I will be spoiling parts of the movie/book as I discuss some of the departures from the source material.

I’m going to put in my unicorn rating here. That way you can get my overall impression without reading the spoilers ahead.

5/5 - Punched in the face by AWESOME!

Okay so what did they change? Not too much, other than leaving some stuff out. I’m not going to discuss all that was left out more what they changed.

The opening is completely different. Instead of Dumbledore coming to pick up Harry at the Dursleys, he instead picks up Harry in a subway station. I don’t know what the reason for this was other than to move the story along a little faster. You don’t have the interaction between Dumbledore and Harry’s extened family. This may not seem significant except that it set up a couple things in the final film, such as the reason for Petunia’s utter dislike of all things magical even though her sister was a witch.

The filmmakers actually do add a scene into the film. This is the first time that anything has been added to the stories. Everyone is celebrating Christmas at the Weasley’s home when they are attacked by death eaters. They fly in, start some fires, rattle their sticks, and fly out. Over all this scene seems unnecessary. We know death eaters are jerks. We really don’t need this scene to prove it. It does show that no one is safe from their attacks, though, and that may have been the point.

The ending also has some odd differences from the book. I’ll take them in order. Harry is not in the room when Dumbledore is killed. Dumbledore tells him to hide below and not to make any noise. I thought this was an interesting choice. I think, in a way, it draws a parallel between Harry and Malfoy. Malfoy is charged with killing Dumbledore and does it out of a fear of death. Harry must sit back and watch it all happen and not interfere and he does it out of loyalty and devotion to Dumbledore. It also serves to galvanize Harry into taking out Voldemort as he, Harry, now has some guilt over his inability to save Dumbledore. After killing Dumbledore, Snape and the death eaters just walk out of Hogwarts. In the book, there was more of a to do. They had an actual fight with the faculty and students. I’m not sure why they did it this way other than the book ending would have been costly in stunts and effects. Hopefully they will redeem themselves with the fight at the end of the seventh book. Lastly, the movie seems to end before Dumbledore’s funeral. My hope is that they will open the first part of the seventh movie with the funeral. I guess I could live without the funeral scene but it would have been a nice tribute to the character of Dumbledore. I know the movies are about Harry but Dumbledore is the Gandalf of the Harry Potter universe.

So that’s my take on the new movie.  Next week, I should be back on some Star Wars related content.