I know my review of Harry Potter & the Half Blood Prince should’ve been up what, around 2 weeks ago? Okay I’m FINALLY posting it…after crawling my way out of the mountain of assignments and lab reports and well, procrastination. I’ve been looking forward to this movie for awhile now…and for those of you living under a rock, Harry Potter’s now in his sixth year at Hogwarts and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is out in the open once again wreaking havoc with his minions aka. the Death Eaters. Here’s the movie poster…you can tell that the movie’s darker than the previous one…

Overall, as a movie it was really good! Casual movie goers are bound to enjoy this installment of the Harry Potter series…it has action, drama, a bit of romance and humor that is guaranteed to entertain one for two and a half hours. This time round, Harry gets to have private lessons with Professor Dumbledore. Hoping to learn some advanced magic to defend him against Voldemort, Harry soon finds out that Dumbledore plans to take him down memory lane through his trusty pensieve, showing Harry Voldemort’s past…before he became the dark wizard the magical world has come to fear. The movie left out several memories collected by Dumbledore from others, such as the one from a Ministry of Magic officer. The memory in question was about the Gaunt family…consisting of Marvolo, Merope and Morfin (Marvolo’s children) Does the name Marvolo ring a bell? Yes? It’s Voldemort’s previous middle name (Tom Marvolo Riddle). The Gaunts are a very old wizarding family and are the last descendants of Salazar Slytherin. Merope was Voldemort’s mother and his father was an ordinary Muggle whom Merope fell in love with. Her love was unrequited, and therefore, she slipped him a love potion til she could not bear it any longer. Tom Riddle left her and she died not long after Voldemort was born. That’s basically a bit of Voldemort’s past. I could go on and on, but I think I’ll leave it at that haha. Anyway, I know they can’t fit everything from the book in, but it’d be nice to see that memory come to life on the silver screen.

The movie showed bits from Voldemort’s childhood at the orphanage as well…


The child actor was really, really good. He managed to capture the darkness that is Voldemort…think ‘The Omen’. Incidentally, the boy’s Ralph Fiennes’ nephew (the actor who plays Voldemort)

There were some very funny bits in the movie…most of them coming from Rupert Grint who plays Roonil Wazlib Won-Won Ron Weasley. And he has a girlfriend in this sixth installment of the series. Lavender Brown’s her name…lol and haha she’s really uh…something. Most of the time she just ogles at him, or well, snogging him. I must say, when Gryffindor won the Quidditch tournament, Harry was supposed to snog Ginny…instead Ron was shown snogging Lavender Brown. And Harry and Ginny did NOT snog in the Room of Requirement!! They changed that bit too… And gosh, the Weasley twins’ shop was beyond amazing!! Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes has so much cool stuff…no wonder they’re raking in Galleons in these dark times…everyone needs a laugh as they say…

Bellatrix Lestrange who was looking every bit the madwoman she is was great as well. Helena Bonham Carter did a good job as always…and Evanna Lynch (who plays Luna Lovegood) was brilliant as well! She was destined to play Luna…she’s exactly how I pictured Luna to be from the books… ^_^ Notice her turnip earrings lol

Haha here she is with a pair of Spectrespecs…free with an issue of The Quibbler (her dad’s the editor of The Quibbler, see…) Those are some cool looking specs…I’d like a pair as well…haha. She was the one who found Harry under his Invisibility Cloak when she apparently saw some wrackspurts around Harry’s head. In the book however, Nymphadora Tonks was the one who found Harry after he got beaten up by stupid Malfoy.

Ah, and the highlight of the movie must be the part where Dumbledore took Harry along to the mysterious cave which was suspected to house a Horcrux. (magical object in which one’s soul is kept in and hidden somewhere. You’d have to split your soul first, of course…) I’ll skip the details, but wow the scene where Dumbledore conjured the ring of fire to ward off Inferi was amazing!

Little did casual movie goers know, but that would be the very last time Dumbledore would save Harry. *sniff sniff* He got Avada Kedavra-ed by Snape…cos Malfoy was too chicken to finish the task given to him by Voldemort and cos Snape made the Unbreakable Vow with Narcissa Malfoy. And towards the end, Fawkes, Dumbledore’s phoenix was seen circling the sky… T.T in the book, there was the phoenix lament and the chapter called The White Tomb which was really depressing…none of that was in the movie though :( The funeral in the book was very beautiful…Dumbledore was the best!! His words of ‘Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!’ always comes to mind. And Dumbledore was particularly fond of the Muggle sweet, Sherbet Lemon ^_^ so fond he made it a password to his office..

All in all, despite the changes made from the book, it was a pretty good movie…and I can’t wait to watch the remaining 2 halves of Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows. I read that the battle of Hogwarts scene will last for 30mins…woot!


Song of the Day: Fireflies by Owl City


Edit: Whoaaaa this is one of the longest posts I’ve ever written…haha see how much I can blab and go on and on about all things Harry Potter? lol *taps map* Mischief Managed! ^_^ Oh how I wish I had a Marauder’s Map…