Half Dud Prince

What in Merlin's beard was that? All the excitement and expectation and THIS is what we get at the end of it all?

It's almost like picking up an ear wax flavour bean from a giant pile of Bertie Bott's every flavour beans. or a vomit flavour bean. Or the Dependal like ice cream my Mom bought me when I was staring and staring at a street urchin eating it on our trip to Ooty (1995 I think).

Some facts -
Fact 1: I love the Harry Potter series - the books, not the movies. I've liked the movies but they just can't match the magical world that our imagination creates when reading the books.

Fact 2: The director had a tough job right from the beginning. The half-blood prince is not the most exciting of the Harry Potter series. It serves as the second part of a bridge leading up to the grand finale of Deathly Hallows. So some benefit of doubt is in order for the director. Plus it is always a difficult job to translate some thing magical (and not just in terms of the contents of the beek) to film.


But I still went into this movie with a lot of expectations - afterall I'd been sneakily checking out the movie reviews after the premier of the movie when I should ideally have been working and all of them spoke very highly of the movie. It was supposed to be the best HP movie till date with the characters really coming into their own and getting comfortable with their roles (from a review I read- the Telegraph, I think).

Really?

I thought the only actors that seemed comfortable had fledgling roles- Severus Snape, and Draco Malfoy. Harry Potter, Ron and Hermione just don't have any chemistry between them. The camaraderie scenes seem so fake and the laughter and romance is forced. Ron provides a bit of comic relief but Harry, especially after drinking Felix Felicis, goes into an overacting spree that is only overtaken by the evil Peter Parker dance in Spiderman 3 for it's stupidity and out-of-place-ness.

Snape is always awesome. His brand of subtle menacing evil is wonderful. But really, for a book that revolves around Snape's character and the book Harry finds, he hardly has any screen time! Snape being the Defence against Dark Arts teacher is not a minor thing that can be just mentioned in passing. Atleast a couple of scenes where Harry suffers at the hands of Snape in the DADA classes would have really hit the spot.

This movie was quite a let down and suddenly raises a very important question. When the movie(s) for Deathly Hallows comes out, should I really go to watch it? Every single movie has been a disappointment till now and after watching each of these movies I see myself going back to the books and rereading (yes, I finished Deathly Hallows again today)

What will I read if the last movie is bad as well??

Hmmppff...Hectic...Harry Potter...

First of all, my sincere apologies for not posting for such a long time. I think this has been the longest dry spells since I began this blog. My heart melts and tears dribble down my cheeks when I think of hundreds and hundreds of you innocent readers jumping out of bed every morning, an expectant twinkle in your eyes, reaching out with nervous fingers for your computers in a hope, oh a deep hope, that there would be an updation on my blog and your lives would have a spark of joy as before.

ok, about that, I DO check my visitor logs you know. Everyday two - three people checked to see if i've updated my blog. Is this the behaviour die hard fans should have? If JK Rowling stops writing the seventh Harry Potter would this be the reaction she'd get? People would be camping outside her house, with banners and candles and would beg her to start writing again. Ok, I wasn't looking for this kind of over the top response to my blog-non-updation - I'm more of a private person than Joanne - but two people? Just two people, thats really bad you know, and you should be ashamed of yourself. I find solace in the fact that maybe most of my regular readers probably saw my gtalk/orkut status message - I put up the name of my latest post/update there, sort of like flagging people to go read if there has been an updation - and seeing no change there did not bother to go to the main blog.

Anyway, the reason for ignoring cyber space for so long has been the one I promised would never affect my blog - work. I've been living a really hectic life since last to last Friday (Intelligent frequent visitors would calculate that the last post I did dates back to circa Thursday, a day before the Friday I refer to here). I've been in meetings that start at 9 and go on till 10:30 at night, I've been working on short deadlines with ambiguous expectations, I've been through quarterly reviews and am still to give a progress report presentation on another project today (Ideally I should be working on that presentation right now, but I just couldn't stop myself from writing something for MY sake rather than for work).

But I still managed to catch "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" this Sunday. Those who know me, know that I am a huge Potter fan. I have stolen the Potter books to read them, I have had those same books stolen from me in the hostel. I've read them so many times that I can speak along with characters whenever I watch the movies and can anticipate dialogues and actions whenever I watch the movies- much to the irritation of people watching the movie with me.

About this movie - Big let down. As the Potter books have started growing thicker, its becoming more and more difficult for the director to capture the essence of the books on celluloid in a mere two hours. Infinite budgets and resources are beaten by the two hour deadline. The movie is not even a speck on the book with thousands of nuances being missed. I know its really easy to disparage something, so I'll not dwell on this. The director had a really difficult job and he's tried valiantly to get the magic on screen, but its just too much to do. Fortunately my favourite scene in the book, when Fred and George make a break for freedom,in a blaze of glory, from the evil shadow of Dolores Umbridge , has come out really well.

My suggestion for the last movie- Don't put a time limit. Make it a 7 hour opus if need be. But stay true to the book. Don't worry about getting audiences for the last movie, you'll get enough people who'd be willing to spend 7 hours watching the movie - I know I will!