Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - just 6 months to go before it releases so obviously promotion is in full throb ;)
{FILM SPOTTING}
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (USA/UK, 2009)
Polish Distributor: Warner Brothers Poland (24th July 2009)
Release Date (worldwide): 15th July 2009
Director: David Yates
Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Michael Gambon, Alan Rickman, Helena Bonham Carter, Jim Broadbent, Robbie Coltrane, Timothy Spall, David Thewlis, Maggie Smith, Julie Walters, Tom Felton, Evanna Lynch, Matthew Lewis, Katie Leung, James Phelps, Oliver Phelps, Natalia Tena, Bonnie Wright, David Bradley, Warwick Davis, Helen McCrory, Jessie Cave, Richard Griffiths, Fiona Shaw, William Melling
Production House: Warner Bros. Pictures, Heyday Films
Plot: (from imdb)
As Harry Potter begins his 6th year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, he discovers an old book marked mysteriously “This book is the property of the Half-Blood Prince” and begins to learn more about Lord Voldemort’s dark past.
Trailer
I think my favourite of the four trailers so far (they’re moving fast, aren’t they?) is the Japanese one, so that’s what I’ve embedded (for the remaining three see here, here and here). Besides, you get to see Daniel Radcliffe trying to introduce himself in Japanese before they show the trailer, so that’s always nice :]
The sceptical part of me thinks that…
…I’m going to have very similar annoyances with this film as I did with the previous David Yates one (you can check out my annoyances here ;)). Hollywood clichés are in abundance on those trailers *sigh*
Dumbledore is probably going to annoy the hell out of me. He features heavily in the trailers (as I guess he should - there’s loads of him in the sixth book), but most of it is the generic wise old wizard stuff rather than the quirky humour and manipulative bastard stuff which is what I love Dumbledore for ;) To be fair, I found him a little annoying in the sixth book because of this too ;-P But I expect it’s going to be even more annoying in the film cause even his voice intonation totally plays into all the Hollywood clichés. If they cut out the line about raspberry jam I’ll kill them lol Dumbledore badly needs to get all the humorous lines he can or he’s going to be a nightmare in this film ;)
I’m also worried that the action scenes are going to be in the same vein as the Dumbledore-Voldemort battle at the end of the previous film. I mean as in spectacular action and special effects might take priority over what’s actually happening between the characters *sigh* I haven’t totally given up hope though - the subplot with Snape and Draco has many less action-orientated moments too and that’s the one that really matters to me and Yates was pretty good with the quieter stuff in the last film, so…
The excited part of me thinks that…
…there’s a couple of positives on the trailers *grin* The “Most people vomit the first time” line at the beginning of the Japanese trailer is perfect Dumbledore humour, so maybe they have tried to keep the generic wise old wizard persona from completely taking over the film *fingers crossed*
While some of the Death Eater shots look preoccupied with making things look visually spectacular *groan*, there are a couple of intriguing shots which look like some of the emotional content is in place.
There’s that shot of Draco rocking back and forth in front of a mirror, which looks great (even though the peek they’ve given us is so short that it’s hard to make it out properly :]). And one of the trailers indicates that the train scene where Harry gets completely squashed by Draco (both literally and metaphorically ;)) has been kept in. I was worried about that - I thought it was great that Harry was so completely defeated, it came as a shock in the book. I thought they wouldn’t keep it in because that’s rather against Hollywood clichés - you don’t let your hero get humiliated quite that badly. Of course they may have taken the impact of the scene down, we’ll see. I hope not! I’m generally really looking forward to Draco in this film - it’s the first time Tom Felton has been given a storyline that lets him play something a bit more complex and I can imagine him being really good :) I think he’s a better actor than the material he’s usually given in the films *sigh*
I’m obviously really excited about Snape. They have to give him more than three lines of dialogue in this one ;) I love that shot that’s on the Japanese trailer where he’s motioning to Harry to stay silent. It’s obvious which scene it’s from, even though he does nothing of the sort in the book. Actually some people are up in arms about it - saying that it gives too much away, but they assume he’s motioning to Harry after the deed, I think it’s before. I also think it curious that he’s pointing his wand at Harry and lowering it as he motions…
The shot with Hogwarts catching fire and Belatrix giving a victory kind of dance looks brilliant too. Helena Bonham-Carter should have a slightly bigger presence in this one than in the last one ;) So I guess I’m looking forward to that too. Of course by bigger I just mean she’s likely to get two or three scenes with dialogue in them rather than just one ;)
It also sounds like the film is going to have quite a bit of comedy in it and it looks like Rupert Grint is going to get a lot of comedic scenes, which is always great. I think that of the three leads, he’s in some ways the most natural actor of them - especially when it comes to comedy. Unfortunately, a lot of the time, he gets pretty bad lines - ones that are supposed to inform rather than give any sort of character development. Looks like those times are over though :)
