Podcast: Play in new window | Download (5.7MB)

This is a special mid-week edition of VFTQ, in which I review Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. It comes out in the US, UK and Ireland on Wednesday the 15th of July.
I recommend that you listen to this review, as I have included a bit more information in the recording then appears in the script below. Click “Read More” to read the text of the review.

Sponsor:  Try GotoMeeting free for 30 days! For this special offer, visit www.gotomeeting.com/podcast

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince review

Please note that this is meant to be heard as an audio review. Hence the script is audio-based. It might read a tad weird. And not contain the full story. I do tend to ramble a bit, after all…

I was a guest last night at the premier of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Know what that means? That means that I got to see it two days before you; Harry Potter Fandom! So I decided to do a review.
This review should not be considered spoilerful unless you have not yet read the book. If you have read the book, I will not be spoiling anything that doesn’t happen in it, yet happens in the movie.

Once we were huddled into the theatre, free water and popcorn in hand (Apparently us guests are important enough for free water and popcorn, but not free FRESH popcorn. The box that I ended up getting was stale. But I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. I’m not going to complain!), some crowd from that farce of a radio station, 98FM took the stage and tried to rally us all in excitement. Between shamelessly pimping their morning show and squeaking like children, I didn’t quite understand a word that they said. Most of this part of the night was spent trading cynical comments with people sitting next to me.

About two and a half minutes later, the stars of the show arrived into the auditorium and took to the microphone. Evanna Lynch (Luna Lovegood) and Matthew Lewis (Neville Longbottom) welcomed the fans, to quite a responsive roar, and then took to their respective seat.

I bet they got goddamned fresh popcorn.

Let’s just get a few things straight here. I didn’t really like the previous films. This piece of filmmaking is 153 minutes long. And maybe 145 of those minutes are cinematic gold. Each and every single one of the actors has matured through his or her run through the series. I loved it.

However, there were a few things that ticked me off. There was a bit too much subplot for my liking. Don’t get me wrong, pretty much all of it was emotionally perfect, but I would have liked to have seen the main plot brought a bit forward more. I’m not sure whether cutting some of this out, or simply making the movie a tad longer would have been a better answer. Because I liked what was there.

Another thing that kind of ticked me off is how cheery the movie was. Ok. It was a lot darker then previous instalments, but I can’t get over the fact that I remember being riveted to the spot in certain parts of the book. I found Dumbledore’s death scene to be rather lacking, as well as his scene in the cave. Something about the cave scene, in particular just didn’t resonate with me. The menace just didn’t seem to be in it, and I expected Dumbledore to put up just a little more fight while drinking the potion.

However, all in all, I suspect that this film will be in the box office for a damn long time. Well done to the cast and crew, this was certainly a very enjoyable night.

Except for the popcorn. Did I tell you about the popcorn?

You can contact Cian by emailing cian@viewfromthequad.com, and you can contact Liz by emailing liz@viewfromthequad.com .

Follow Cian on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/cianmm, follow Liz at http://www.twitter.com/blondeleftie and follow Scodio Studios at http://www.twitter.com/scodio

Leave a comment on the show at www.ViewFromTheQuad.com and phone the voicemail line at 001 206 203 4610