Harry Potter and the Plotless Prince

In a word - don't believe the hype.

You know, I'm usually the most lenient of our crew when it comes to book-to-movie adaptations. Especially where "Harry Potter" is concerned. After all, the page and the screen are two totally different mediums. The virtues of one are often the vices of the other. Inevitably, favorite scenes and characters are going to be cut, plot points will be lost, and details sacrificed.

However, from pretty much the first scene forward, "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince" teased out the nitpicker in me. The book wasn't just surgically cut in many ways ... it was essentially amputated. Monumental elements were left out and pointless ones were added in. Yes, it may be winning very positive reviews, but if you read carefully, the critics are more often than not damning it with faint praise. Put simply, the end product constitutes less of an actual movie, and more of a loose assembly of scenes patched and edited together.

And HBP, as I will now call it, is Warner Brothers' tent-pole summer movie. The flagship. It was pushed back almost six months for just that reason. Lest we forget, this turkey cost around two hundred and fifty million to make. Sigh. You know what, maybe it's time to curtail these ridiculously massive movie budgets. Like Alan Moore said, use the money to feed a third world country for a month or two instead.

Anyway, if you love or respect the original material (and this is my second favorite book of the series) and have any powers of discernment or cognition, it seems impossible that this film will please you. I'd heard fairly troublesome rumors about this one from the beginning, but was willing to give the filmmakers the benefit of the doubt. Shaky camera aside, I didn't really mind David Yates' direction of the last one, and hey, Steve Kloves even came back to once again start penning the adaptions. He did a solid job on the first four, but I don't know what happened here.

So without further ado, let's start slicing this big fat turkey up. Spoilers follow, but honestly, HBP has been out for how long?

- After a semi-cool opening with the Death Eaters wreaking havoc on hapless Muggles, the film finds our hero Harry Potter not at the Dursleys ... but at a subway cafe trying to pick up a twenty-something waitress. The first real WTF moment of the film.

- Harry soon after informs Dumbledore that he's been "riding around on trains" all summer. WTF again? He should have been in hiding at the Dursleys, seeking the safety of the family blood protection thanks to his mother's sacrifice. No mention of this, or of the excellent scene where Dumbledore collects him from his vapid relatives. Not to mention assaults them with a couch. The key point is, though, Harry can't just wander around freely. Voldemort is back, and now everyone knows it. Hello? Harry is under maximum security courtesy of the Ministry of Magic, and basically has to be shuffled about in armored cars, not joy riding alone on the subway.

- There's no mention of Rufus Scrimgeour, the new and rather important Minister of Magic.

- Even crazier, there's barely any mention of Sirius Black, Harry's beloved godfather who was killed just months ago. Dumbledore doesn't even mention him, but I suppose that's predictable, because the old wizard has none of the paternal warmth towards Harry that he has demonstrated again and again in the books. Really, who cares when he's killed at the end, because the films have already engaged in character assassination.

- When Harry gets to the Burrow, he's already making googly eyes at Ginny. No, he doesn't have any feelings for her at that point in the story, aside from the brotherly kind. It was supposed to be a slow, gradual realization over the course of the year. And frankly, why even include this in the film if you're going to cut everything else? The relationship was given no time to breathe as it was, and was kinda pointless.

- WTF is Fenrir Greyback doing at Borgin and Burkers with Draco Malfoy? The whole point of Malfoy's mission is that he has to do it alone, because Voldemort wants him to fail. Also, no mention of the possibility of the Dark Mark on Malfoy's arm, which is the basis for all of Harry's suspicions.

- After Harry is left bloodied and paralyzed on the Hogwarts Express, Luna Lovegood finds him. I love Luna, but honestly, if you're going to put Tonks in the movie at all, at least give her something to do and let her be the one to find him. Even worse is the fact that Luna discovers him because he's surrounded by "wrackspurts"?! WTF? Like half the creatures Luna believes in, they don't exist. Newsflash, it was a joke.

- When Harry gets to Hogwarts, no indication whatsoever is given that Dumbledore has any special plans for him his sixth year, which is a rather crucial point in the book. Instead, he randomly invites him up to his office, and shows him a memory or two, but offers no special advice or reason for doing so.

- Dumbledore actually asks Harry is he's dating Hermione Granger. WTF? Not only is Dumbledore brilliant, but he's highly intuitive. He knows of the trio's special bond, and probably understands it better than they do. And um, shouldn't he be more focused on, oh, maybe defeating Voldemort?

- Hogwarts is barely a school now. Aside from the newby Slughorn's potions class, no one really has lessons anymore. There is no mention of the ever-important O.W.L.'s of the year before, or anything about learning apparition. A huge deal is made of this in the book, especially considering how important it is that no one can apparate or disapparate on school grounds. Kinda the whole point with Malfoy attempting to smuggle Death Eaters into the school through the vanishing cabinet rather than through the usual magical means.

- While we're on the subject, even Dumbledore CANNOT apparate while in Hogwarts, at least until the last act of the film when he winks and mumbles something about how "being me has its privileges." WTF?! This is inviolable magic here.

- Snape finally securing control of the Defense Against the Dark Arts post is a HUGE DEAL in the book. It all ties in with whether or not Dumbledore trusts people too much. In the movie, no one cares, nor do they even attend his class anyway.

- On the romance front, the whole reason Ron starts locking lips with Lavender Brown is because Ginny basically goads him into it. He obviously likes Hermione, and is happy when he finds out she was going to invite him to Slughorn's party. Here the whole thing is arbitrary and his actions aren't that understandable.

- Why is it Luna who spots Harry allegedly slipping the Felix Felicis into Ron's drink instead of Hermione? And while we're on Luna, why was she wearing the Gryffindor Lion hat in this movie and not in the last one? And why didn't it roar? And most importantly, why didn't Luna do her priceless Quidditch commentary?

- Where is all the big mystery about Malfoy and the Room of Requirement? And WTF is all that business about half-eaten apples and dead birds in the vanishing cabinet? Does it already work? And if so, why not bring in the Death Eaters already?

- In the book, we had no idea Katie Bell's cursed necklace was intended for Dumbledore, unlike the clear understanding we got in the film.

- One of the biggest mysteries in the book was the identity of the Half Blood Prince, the brilliant student who'd once owned Harry's potions text. Was it a he or a she? Were they good or evil? Had it possibly even belonged to Harry's father? In the movie, no one seemed to really care.

- Okay, so in the books, Snape will assign Harry detention for the least little infraction. Yet in the movie, Harry nearly kills the student he's sworn to protect with his own deadly sectum sempra spell, and Snape just lets him walk off without saying a word? WTF?! Here, we're not adapting the book so much as rewriting it backwards.

- Ginny then takes Harry to the Room of Requirement to ditch the potions book, and he just agrees to this with a simple nod? In what alternate universe was Harry ever going to relinquish that book that had become almost a friend to him? And then Ginny uses this time to kiss him? What?

- There is absolutely no mention of the fact that Harry learns that it was Snape who gave the location of James and Lily Potter to Voldemort before his conversion. A rather important piece of information, don't you think?

- While we're on the subject, a crucial point in HBP is, yes, INFORMATION. The book is practically a character study of what made the darkest wizard of all time tick. We learn Dumbledore has spent years tracking Voldemort, ferreting out every single piece of his dark past in the hope that it will someday lead to his future defeat. Memories about his parents, his family, his time before, during, and after Hogwarts, the people who had known him, everything was examined, and nothing was left to chance. In the movie, we get two and a half blurry memories. In other words, the audience learns a big fat NOTHING about Tom Riddle and his alter ego Voldemort, which was of course the entire point of the book. Again,WTF?

- Um, and why exactly did we see that memory in the Pensieve of Riddle's orphanage-bound childhood anyway? Yes, I know I just said there wasn't enough backstory, but what was there was NEVER explained. Riddle's sense of his own importance, his tendency to scavenge and collect "trophies," the reference to the cave he once scared his fellow orphans at, and everything else was never referenced in the film. Where were all of Dumbledore's fascinating commentaries piecing together Voldemort's fractured psyche? Where were his insights to Harry that would hopefully allow him to triumph over the Dark Lord? Again, that was the entire point of the book.

- The CRUCIAL discovery of Voldemort's use of the Horcruxes was rendered almost moot in the film. Dumbledore said that practically any object can be used to conceal part of a person's soul, and actually left it at that! WTF!? No word was given in the movie at all about Voldemort's imbuing Hogwarts items with significance, or that Nagini the snake was probably one, or anything of the sort.

- This brings me to my next point. What exactly is Harry going to do in the next two films since HBP was supposed to prepare him for his epic quest and did nothing of the sort? With absolutely no wisdom or guidance to go on, is he simply going to stroll around and randomly turn over stumps in the hopes of accidentally uncovering a Horcrux? Is that why the next movie was broken into two parts? This is perhaps the single greatest WTF of the movie, and it actually prompted me to inwardly chuckle when Dumbledore toppled off the tower, realizing he had left his scarred protege so ludicrously unprepared for the trials ahead.

- Sadly, even the discovery of the single fake Horcrux in this film made little sense. How did Dumbledore know about the cave? Why did he and Harry apparate directly onto a jagged rock jutting out in a storm-tossed sea? Why not just land at the entrance of the cave? How did he know about the boat? How did he instantly and inexplicably understand that he was to drink the liquid in the basin? Why was there no talk of the Inferi or what they were?

- When Dumbledore and Harry apparate to the astronomy tower (which is impossible), how is Dumbledore still standing? The potion in the book nearly killed him. Where is the scene where Harry is paralyzed once more and hidden under his invisibility cloak? Why doesn't he just disarm Malfoy since he's still mobile?

- And on the subject of Malfoy, WTF has he exactly been doing all year? Why are the Death Eaters brought into the castle through the vanishing cabinet at all? Bellatrix kicks a glass or two over and then knocks out some windows, but aside from this pointless, half-handed vandalism, why were they there, period? After all that screen time we get with Malfoy trying to sneak them in, the Death Eaters come in, watch Snape kill Dumbledore, shrug, and then leave the grounds with no explanation whatsoever.

- And another thing. At the Burrow, Mr. Weasley basically tells Harry he suspects what Malfoy is up to. Unlike in the book, I might add. But anyway, um, Arthur is a ministry official, as well as a member of the Order of the Phoenix. Shouldn't he, um, I don't know, DO SOMETHING?!

- And where the HELL was the awesome, all-out wizards duel between the Death Eaters and the Order of the Phoenix in the middle of Hogwarts? Why would anyone in their right mind cut that special-effects heavy action set piece, and then add a needless attack on the Burrow with people running around lost out in the wetlands?

- So at the climax of the film, yes Snape does succeed in killing Dumbledore. The funny thing is, he just calmly walks away, then tells Harry he's the Half Blood Prince, and then shrugs and leaves. No explanation for WHY he told him. No explanation for WHY he ever called himself that to begin with. You know, I'm not even starting on this one. Sigh.

- And in case you missed it, was it just me, or was there a radical new character death after Dumbledore? See, the big, dumb half-giant Hagrid was passed out drunk in his cabin. In the movie, an hour or so passes, and the filmmakers actually have Bellatrix then walk by and casually blow up his house. Hagrid is dead, people. Can't say I'm really gonna mourn that one, but certainly a minor deviation from the book, no?

- And then we get a scene with all the Hogwarts students standing around Dumbledore's broken body and holding up their lit wands in what was beautifully described by my nitpicking partner Patti as a "We Are the World" moment. I was wondering if they were going to start offering each other Coca-Colas, and then burst into song about teaching the world some harmony. Um, did anyone think about including the actual freakin' funeral, or at least Fawkes the phoenix's song?!

- At the end, Harry never breaks up with Ginny for her own protection, but I guess it doesn't matter, because in the movie I don't remember her ever even breaking up with Dean Thomas to begin with. Then you realize Dumbledore never told Harry to confide only in Ron and Hermione, so for all we know, Harry will be working with the Ministry in the next one. Dumbledore certainly never tried to convey the importance of love, and how Harry's ability to love is what truly separates him from Voldemort, and that in the end, love is the only thing that can defeat You Know Who. Actually, Dumbledore never gave him any actual instructions or anything, so I'm left wondering why Harry is determined to hunt down the Horcruxes after all.

So, big summer bust at the movies. I'll stick with "Star Trek" and "Terminator Salvation." As for movie Harry, well, have fun with your mission next time around. I can only doff my hat to you, and wish you the best of luck. Hogwarts knows you're gonna need it.

Oh, well. At least Dumbledore still enjoys Muggle knitting patterns.