Rating:
Okay, I admit it. I am no fan of the Harry Potter series. I did give a fairly positive review of the fifth film in the series, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and I stand by that assessment of it as the best picture in the series, but it’s not a movie I’ll ever watch again.

Now, then, we turn to 2009’s Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the sixth outing in the mega-popular franchise. I personally thought the first four Harry Potter movies were unrelentingly boring and murderously awful. Given that, this sixth movie manages, if you can believe it, to be the worst one yet by the a wide margin.

It’s at this point that I’d usually give you some broad strokes of a movie’s story, and therein lies our major problem. This picture has no story whatsoever. Now, you can get away with this in an arty kind of movie, one that deals with character or thematic exploration. But your Potter flicks are mass-audience, popcorn-chompin’, effects-laden plot movies all the way. Luckily for all concerned, the Harry Potter fanbase is so slavishly devoted they’ll overlook any number of flaws in their haste to put on silly hats and slob all over Daniel Radcliffe’s knob.

But not me. Fuck this movie. For two and a half hours nothing happens that can be called a story. It’s just a series of various events, only a few of which can really be considered “important” from the broader perspective of the series as a whole. This picture was totally unnecessary; its 150 minutes could easily and economically have been distilled down to 10 and made the opening sequence of the final film (or final half-film, as the seventh movie has been infuriatingly split into two). The audience would have lost nothing of value from these edits; the filmmakers would have missed out on millions of dollars. So I guess I’m not surprised how this one went down.

Harry Potter and the Longass Title also has the same huge flaw as the other movies do. Our protagonist essentially just spends each film’s running time bumbling around while events happen around him, never taking an active role in anything. Then, at the end, a competent adult or, often, some sort of deus ex machina does all the work and Harry takes all the credit.

Hooray!

Okay, let’s talk about one more thing for a second before I choke on my own rage and die. Let’s talk about the look of the movie. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is, without a doubt, the ugliest big-budget movie I’ve ever looked at. Everything is brown and gray and gritty and dingy. I don’t mean in a stylistically interesting way. I mean in an ugly way that makes me feel like I need a shower. Attention, cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel: Fuck you, and I hope you die.

Hey, guess what! This movie was nominated for a Best Cinematography Oscar. Attention, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences: Fuck you, and I hope you die.

I know this review hasn’t been very thorough or interesting or appropriate, but holy shit this movie sucked. Let’s go ahead and never speak of it again.

If You Hated This, You Will Also Totally Hate:

• Pre-Potter Ponderings
• Harry Potter and the Sodomite Teacher
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
• Is Dumbledore Gay?
• J.K. Rowling: Sort of a Liar