4/10
The Best Book...The Worst Movie!
15 July 2009
Warning: Spoilers
As an avid Harry Potter fan who has read the books multiple times and of course seen the movies repeatedly, I was extremely excited to see this movie at the midnight showing. Half-Blood Prince is my favorite book and other than 7, the darkest book in the series.

That being said, I was so disgusted with this movie. Yates & company literally turned it into Harry Potter comedy hour. I'm not sure how anyone thought this movie was amazingly dark when the theater was cracking up laughing the entire time at trite jokes. The only thing that should have been funny in this entire movie was Lavender & Won Won's obsession w/ each other.

The movie emphasized the unrequited love/snogging/Ron & Lavender romance over the major plot line which was learning about Tom Riddle's background. With the exception of Dumbledore's first meeting w/ Tom & Tom asking about how to make Horcruxes, all of the background was left out. That's essentially three quarters of the book omitted.

What was the point of not having Tonks find Harry on the train? How can you have Tonks call Remus sweetie and not explain all the drama between them and how they got together? How can you leave out Madam Rosmerta's involvement? What was the point of the burning of the Burrow scene? The ending was horrific. It was completely different than the book. So now Dumbledore is the only one who can apparate on Hogwarts grounds? Malfoy spends all this time working on this cabinet only to have the Death Eaters walk through, Bellatrix (who is not present in the book) encourage him to kill Dumbledore, Snape kills Dumbledore, and they kindly saunter off the grounds in no hurry. No battle... no fear of being caught...nothing. What was the point of the cabinet in the movie? It was completely anti-climatic and they didn't even have the funeral scene which is a must-have. The worst part ever was the very end...Harry and Hermione are talking about Dumbledore's death and going searching for horcruxes and she randomly chimes in that Ron is OK w/ Ginny and Harry. WHAT?! It was so awkward.

And can someone please tell me how they are going to explain Dobby and Kreacher in the Deathly Hallows movies when they have essentially been omitted from the subsequent movies after being introduced? I honestly would like a do-over. They really need to re-shoot this movie and try again because it was bad. For the real fan, it leaves you cold and empty, with no tears for Dumbledore because you are so confused, and wondering why Yates and Co. cared about Lavender being funny more than the back story of Tom Riddle.
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