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Reviews22
laraemeadows's rating
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince is the sixth movie in Harry Potter film series. Too dependent on previous films or expecting the audience to have read the books, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince fails to develop into a complete movie.
Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) is whisked away by his professor and fellow wizard Dumbledore (Michael Gambon )to meet with Horace Slughorn (Jim Broadbent) to encourage him to return to his professorship at Hogwarts School. Harry and Dumbledore continue to attempt to find a way to defeat Lord Voldemort and prevent him from returning to the living world. Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) and Hermione Granger (Emma Watson) dance around their feelings for each other and engage in typical teenage romance melodrama. Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton) sneaks around, waving his wand at bookcases in dark storage rooms, spiraling down an emotional whirlpool.
As an added bonus for the audience, the director and writers have left bonus loose ends for the audience to enjoy. The extraneous footage includes destroying mystical stuff, a girl who has a crush on Harry, some broom related sporting events, potions, and curses. The cinematic loose ends fray long enough to braid and be sold as rope to climbers heading off for K2.
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince reminds me of leftover casserole. Leftover casserole is made by taking the remnants of a week's worth of food, layering it in a casserole dish and hoping it tastes good enough that your family won't run out on you. If you sprinkle it with parmesan cheese, it can look delicious, but it almost always tastes like week old, reheated donkey-butt stew. Director David Yates and writer Steve Kloves take a bit of left over the Sorcerer's Stone, covers it in Order of the Phoenix, slathers on Chamber of Secrets, dumps in Goblet of Fire and sprinkles Order of the Phoenix, bakes it with parmesan on top (the special effects) and thinks we will eat it.
It shows a total lack of cinematic integrity to assign the audience required reading or mandatory viewing in order to understand anything that is taking place on screen. It is perfectly rational to expect a first time Harry Potter viewer won't get every mention but they shouldn't be completely lost. It is not too much to ask for a bit of recap, artfully worked into the story so new viewers can understand what is going on. It irritates me to no end that David Yates, and the production staff think we should pay full price for a half a movie. In one of the more "intense" scenes in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, Dumbledore says, "Once again I must ask too much of you, Harry" but I think it's the writer and director who have asked too much of the audience by hiding the casserole behind a smoke screen - literally.
Smoke comes out of the water, goes into the water, is outdoors, is indoors, and seems to follow Harry and his compadres, regardless of their travels. Harry would be the alpha caveman of any cave based solely on his ability to attract fire to himself. Based solely on the beauty of the smoke, Harry Potter is a stunning movie.
All of the effects in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince shimmer almost brightly enough to make one blind to the disparities in the plot. Well lit sets are set against green-screen created backgrounds that seem to flow naturally into each other. While some of the scenes don't work as well as others, they all work well enough to suspend disbelief and make wizardry riveting.
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince has no beginning, nor an end; it is only a middle. With nothing to tell the audience what has happened up until now and an unraveling carpet for an ending, it fails to offer the audience a reason to sit through the film. It should be renamed to Harry Potter and a Half.
Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) is whisked away by his professor and fellow wizard Dumbledore (Michael Gambon )to meet with Horace Slughorn (Jim Broadbent) to encourage him to return to his professorship at Hogwarts School. Harry and Dumbledore continue to attempt to find a way to defeat Lord Voldemort and prevent him from returning to the living world. Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) and Hermione Granger (Emma Watson) dance around their feelings for each other and engage in typical teenage romance melodrama. Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton) sneaks around, waving his wand at bookcases in dark storage rooms, spiraling down an emotional whirlpool.
As an added bonus for the audience, the director and writers have left bonus loose ends for the audience to enjoy. The extraneous footage includes destroying mystical stuff, a girl who has a crush on Harry, some broom related sporting events, potions, and curses. The cinematic loose ends fray long enough to braid and be sold as rope to climbers heading off for K2.
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince reminds me of leftover casserole. Leftover casserole is made by taking the remnants of a week's worth of food, layering it in a casserole dish and hoping it tastes good enough that your family won't run out on you. If you sprinkle it with parmesan cheese, it can look delicious, but it almost always tastes like week old, reheated donkey-butt stew. Director David Yates and writer Steve Kloves take a bit of left over the Sorcerer's Stone, covers it in Order of the Phoenix, slathers on Chamber of Secrets, dumps in Goblet of Fire and sprinkles Order of the Phoenix, bakes it with parmesan on top (the special effects) and thinks we will eat it.
It shows a total lack of cinematic integrity to assign the audience required reading or mandatory viewing in order to understand anything that is taking place on screen. It is perfectly rational to expect a first time Harry Potter viewer won't get every mention but they shouldn't be completely lost. It is not too much to ask for a bit of recap, artfully worked into the story so new viewers can understand what is going on. It irritates me to no end that David Yates, and the production staff think we should pay full price for a half a movie. In one of the more "intense" scenes in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, Dumbledore says, "Once again I must ask too much of you, Harry" but I think it's the writer and director who have asked too much of the audience by hiding the casserole behind a smoke screen - literally.
Smoke comes out of the water, goes into the water, is outdoors, is indoors, and seems to follow Harry and his compadres, regardless of their travels. Harry would be the alpha caveman of any cave based solely on his ability to attract fire to himself. Based solely on the beauty of the smoke, Harry Potter is a stunning movie.
All of the effects in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince shimmer almost brightly enough to make one blind to the disparities in the plot. Well lit sets are set against green-screen created backgrounds that seem to flow naturally into each other. While some of the scenes don't work as well as others, they all work well enough to suspend disbelief and make wizardry riveting.
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince has no beginning, nor an end; it is only a middle. With nothing to tell the audience what has happened up until now and an unraveling carpet for an ending, it fails to offer the audience a reason to sit through the film. It should be renamed to Harry Potter and a Half.
Forged in the heat of war and personal tragedy, claw wielding Wolverine was born. Shoddy production and inconsistent writing makes me wish that X-Men Origins: Wolverine could be retroactively aborted.
After his life is turned upside down, the young James Logan - Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) embarks on a tragic journey with co-mutant Victor Creed (Live Schreiber) that spans four wars and endless killing. When the wars finally end, they are dispatched to be members of a special squad of men sent to commit unspeakable acts. Unable to stomach the discomfort of his orders, Logan splits to find newer, more unimaginable pain. All the while Hugh Jackman is hot.
It surprises me that a movie with such a large budget and characters with a following as strong as the X-Men comics could not find a company to produce quality visuals. (Good thing Hugh Jackman didn't need help with his high quality visuals.) The computer generated effects are more than 20% of the movie, and are 80% of the problem. Lighting on the actors is a different color and are at a different angle than the green screen scenery behind. The generated backdrops lack an understanding of shadow and depth of field. This basic misunderstanding of lighting irons the visuals so flat, it's impossible to suspend disbelief.
The frustration is further compounded by the unnecessary use of generated objects. (And the unnecessary use of clothing on Jackman.) Instead of using models to create locations too expensive to build fully, they are created using the same disappointing generations. When props could be used to save money on the film and create a better visual effect, director Gavin Hood still uses artificially spawned effects.
The writing by David Benioff and Skip Woods does not come naturally either. Events that could prove Wolverine's humanity are sped through at a pace that makes them almost comedy. The love story is so rushed, it is hard to feel their connection. Characters multiply so quickly, it is hard to keep them straight. (Except Wolverine, it is hard to miss Jackman when he is burning a hole in the screen.) Some of the one liners are as cliché as teenage angst.
The audience is forced to languish in poorly lit fight scenes that drag on in near complete darkness. Those scenes that had enough light were poorly choreographed, and it is hard to get interested in what they are doing. Well, when they have their clothes on.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine has an almost orgasmic amount of pretty. I admit it shamelessly: I am in complete and total lust with Hugh Jackman, and his special attention to his body for this movie did not go unnoticed, by me or any of the other people in the theater. Jackman wasn't alone in unbelievably, moist-worthy hotness. Live Schreiber's creepy character can't outshine his ha-cha-cha-cha gorgeousness. Lynn Collin, who plays Kayla – the love interest in the film, made me want to fall in love with her.
These actors did not just rest on their beauty. Hugh Jackman was completely handcuffed by an imprisoning script. Jackman and Collins have really beautiful chemistry. My only gripe about the acting was the complete lack of emotional connection between Jackman and Schreiber. Neither gave bad performances individually but they can't seem to really bond the characters tight enough to make enough to give the story the depth.
All I wanted from X-Men Origins: Wolverine was a bit of ass kicking fun. Even accounting for the Yowza Factor, X-Men Origins: Wolverine fell short. The substandard visuals made even the best looking people (Hugh Jackman) look stupid.
After his life is turned upside down, the young James Logan - Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) embarks on a tragic journey with co-mutant Victor Creed (Live Schreiber) that spans four wars and endless killing. When the wars finally end, they are dispatched to be members of a special squad of men sent to commit unspeakable acts. Unable to stomach the discomfort of his orders, Logan splits to find newer, more unimaginable pain. All the while Hugh Jackman is hot.
It surprises me that a movie with such a large budget and characters with a following as strong as the X-Men comics could not find a company to produce quality visuals. (Good thing Hugh Jackman didn't need help with his high quality visuals.) The computer generated effects are more than 20% of the movie, and are 80% of the problem. Lighting on the actors is a different color and are at a different angle than the green screen scenery behind. The generated backdrops lack an understanding of shadow and depth of field. This basic misunderstanding of lighting irons the visuals so flat, it's impossible to suspend disbelief.
The frustration is further compounded by the unnecessary use of generated objects. (And the unnecessary use of clothing on Jackman.) Instead of using models to create locations too expensive to build fully, they are created using the same disappointing generations. When props could be used to save money on the film and create a better visual effect, director Gavin Hood still uses artificially spawned effects.
The writing by David Benioff and Skip Woods does not come naturally either. Events that could prove Wolverine's humanity are sped through at a pace that makes them almost comedy. The love story is so rushed, it is hard to feel their connection. Characters multiply so quickly, it is hard to keep them straight. (Except Wolverine, it is hard to miss Jackman when he is burning a hole in the screen.) Some of the one liners are as cliché as teenage angst.
The audience is forced to languish in poorly lit fight scenes that drag on in near complete darkness. Those scenes that had enough light were poorly choreographed, and it is hard to get interested in what they are doing. Well, when they have their clothes on.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine has an almost orgasmic amount of pretty. I admit it shamelessly: I am in complete and total lust with Hugh Jackman, and his special attention to his body for this movie did not go unnoticed, by me or any of the other people in the theater. Jackman wasn't alone in unbelievably, moist-worthy hotness. Live Schreiber's creepy character can't outshine his ha-cha-cha-cha gorgeousness. Lynn Collin, who plays Kayla – the love interest in the film, made me want to fall in love with her.
These actors did not just rest on their beauty. Hugh Jackman was completely handcuffed by an imprisoning script. Jackman and Collins have really beautiful chemistry. My only gripe about the acting was the complete lack of emotional connection between Jackman and Schreiber. Neither gave bad performances individually but they can't seem to really bond the characters tight enough to make enough to give the story the depth.
All I wanted from X-Men Origins: Wolverine was a bit of ass kicking fun. Even accounting for the Yowza Factor, X-Men Origins: Wolverine fell short. The substandard visuals made even the best looking people (Hugh Jackman) look stupid.
The Brothers Bloom unwinds the story of two confidence men, an Asian sidekick and their rich but isolated mark. The Brothers Bloom is a charming off kilter dramedy about love.
Bloom (Adrien Brody) and his brother Stephen (Mark Ruffalo) work as confidence men with their explosive sidekick Bang Bang (Rinko Kikuchi). Tired of the life, Bloom tells his brother he's done. His brother talks him into one final con against Penelope Stamp (Rachael Weisz.) Penelope is a rich, eccentric shut-in who has yet to live. They take advantage of her loneliness in a scam meant to satisfy her need for adventure.
Rian Johnson sees the world in The Brothers Bloom the way an archer fish sees bugs. The archer fish hunts bugs above the water's surface by shooting water at the bug from below the water line. When looking up from underneath everything looks like it is one place but actually is in a slightly different place because water refracts light, changing the view for the submerged. The archer fish has to see things slightly cockeyed in order to get the archery right. Rian Johnson took a slightly crooked approach to get the cinematic physics just right.
Penelope Stamp is the Robin Hood of cinematic archer fish. Everything about her life, her development, and her emotions are delightfully off balance. She isn't brilliant but she had dedicated herself to learning how to do many strange and obscure things. It wasn't good enough for Rian Johnson to make Penelope interested in pinhole cameras (a camera made by putting a piece of photo paper in a light-tight container and poking a pin hole in it to expose the paper), it had to be a pin hole camera made of a watermelon. Johnson made sure Penelope is beautiful, but by casting Weisz, made her an interesting beauty.
It isn't just the nature of the characters, but also how they talk. Johnson commits so fully to this strange-ified world, that dialogue that would warrant a call to the loony bin in real life, seems natural in the world created in The Brothers Bloom.
The downside to making the characters fit so naturally in their world is jokes or emotions that might resonate deeply in our world sometimes fall a little flat in The Brothers Bloom. There are no gut busting jokes but occasionally the audience finds themselves chuckling. Cheeks will not be soaked in tears, but occasionally a frog may find way into the throats of the viewers.
The Brothers Bloom is an endearing quirk-filled film sure to whisk the audience away on a flying crime filled love carpet.
Bloom (Adrien Brody) and his brother Stephen (Mark Ruffalo) work as confidence men with their explosive sidekick Bang Bang (Rinko Kikuchi). Tired of the life, Bloom tells his brother he's done. His brother talks him into one final con against Penelope Stamp (Rachael Weisz.) Penelope is a rich, eccentric shut-in who has yet to live. They take advantage of her loneliness in a scam meant to satisfy her need for adventure.
Rian Johnson sees the world in The Brothers Bloom the way an archer fish sees bugs. The archer fish hunts bugs above the water's surface by shooting water at the bug from below the water line. When looking up from underneath everything looks like it is one place but actually is in a slightly different place because water refracts light, changing the view for the submerged. The archer fish has to see things slightly cockeyed in order to get the archery right. Rian Johnson took a slightly crooked approach to get the cinematic physics just right.
Penelope Stamp is the Robin Hood of cinematic archer fish. Everything about her life, her development, and her emotions are delightfully off balance. She isn't brilliant but she had dedicated herself to learning how to do many strange and obscure things. It wasn't good enough for Rian Johnson to make Penelope interested in pinhole cameras (a camera made by putting a piece of photo paper in a light-tight container and poking a pin hole in it to expose the paper), it had to be a pin hole camera made of a watermelon. Johnson made sure Penelope is beautiful, but by casting Weisz, made her an interesting beauty.
It isn't just the nature of the characters, but also how they talk. Johnson commits so fully to this strange-ified world, that dialogue that would warrant a call to the loony bin in real life, seems natural in the world created in The Brothers Bloom.
The downside to making the characters fit so naturally in their world is jokes or emotions that might resonate deeply in our world sometimes fall a little flat in The Brothers Bloom. There are no gut busting jokes but occasionally the audience finds themselves chuckling. Cheeks will not be soaked in tears, but occasionally a frog may find way into the throats of the viewers.
The Brothers Bloom is an endearing quirk-filled film sure to whisk the audience away on a flying crime filled love carpet.