Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

The moment I saw the preview for Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (= HP6), I knew that I’d be watching that bad boy at IMAX, which they so proudly boast as “the biggest screen in Europe”. (Or perhaps “biggest screen in the UK”, but that doesn’t sound as good.) So, yonkies ago I booked us in to see it, and last night our numbers came up… unfortuantely it was a 9 PM session which is a bit late for a school night, but that was all that I could get. Jules and Shelley, and Nick and Suzie crashed our party too.

No folks, they are not Kristy and Shelley’s ordinary, everyday glasses – the first 12 minutes or so of the movie was in 3D. Whether this added anything to the movie or not is up for debate; it certainly added to the fun factor, though throughout the rest of the movie I felt a compelling urge to spin the glasses around in my hand, to pass the time.

On reflection, the reason I felt this way is probably because the movie is far slower than what I had imagined it would be. I mean, when you watch the previews, it makes it out to be non-stop action from beginning to end; but in reality, there’s a lot of emphasis placed on the awkward love interests between Harry and Ginny, and Ron and Hermionie. (Seperately, that is; there’s not some weird four-way love square thing going on there.)

Suffice to say, the movie did not do the justice to the book that my imagination did. I know they have a limited time window to work with, but I feel like they chose to portray all the boring slower paced elements of the book, rather than the big action scenes. Maybe my memory of the book is wrong, but I’ve never been wrong on anything before, so it’s doubtful.

I still enjoyed myself – it’s easy to get carried away into their world of magic – but overall it doesn’t hold a candle to HP5. gerrod.com rating: 7/10.