Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

I just feel such a monumental amount of indifference towards this film. It is more than just a case of the franchise running out of steam; the adaptation just didn't really hold the weight that the book did. In the book, Harry had been re-orphaned, his love life was on the rocks and he had just found out that he was in a kill or be killed situation with the greatest force of evil known to Muggle and Wizard alike.

It was dark, scary and pessimistic; maybe on some level Rowling was using it as a metaphor for adolescence and puberty. I personally don't feel she is as deep as that but hoity-toity reviewers on late night review shows seem to think so. Anyway, in the film he is flirting with a waitress and having a laugh with his friends. It all seemed to be focusing too much on the romantic entanglements, with the actual main plotline just hanging around occasionally rearing its head. Like a drunken grandparent who wakes up long enough to nonsensically contribute to the conversation before falling back asleep.

You know what was missing from this Harry Potter film? Magic. It's supposed to be set in a magical world and there were tricks and special effects, great - but the magical atmosphere was severely lacking. Alfonso Cuaron put a lot of little neat touches into Prisoner of Azkaban which was sorely missing in the latest instalments. It was almost like Hollyoaks - no, it was worse, it was like the late night 'special' Hollyoaks only without the swearing and less sex. Actually, that IS Hollyoaks. OK, it was somewhere between Hollyoaks and Tracy Beaker but with a special effects budget.

If I could muster up the venom I would probably attack the Rise of the Gollums scene but even that just makes me think 'why bother?'. If Speed Racer was an acid trip of a film - bright colours whizzing by, the sense of time and space being immaterial as you are bombarded by incomprehensible sounds and images but an innate sense of understanding what you were seeing - then Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince is the antidepressant of movies. It doesn't really cheer you up but it takes away the depressed feelings and leaves you feeling somewhat numb and oddly disappointed.