I must confess...

I've struggled with whether or not I should speak up about this and after a week or two of torment, I've decided I just have to come clean.

Prepare yourselves.

I did not like Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

Saying the words aloud makes me feel like the worst sort of traitor. I have absolutely loved the Harry Potter series and while none of the movies have come close to portraying the awesomeness of the books, this last movie installment disappointed me to my core. It made me feel ashamed of it's badness.

While some of the earlier movies didn't remain faithful to the books you left the theatre with a sense of fulfillment. The movies were exciting and had good, strong, easy to follow story lines.

Here are my core gripes with the latest of the Potter installments:

- The opening. While the death eaters flying around the bridge had some great special effects, it was pointless. Opening with the Prime Minister being addressed by the portrait on his wall would have been better and they could have more clearly addressed the problems the muggle world was facing due to the death eaters/dementors on the lose.

- The "funnies" in this installment were severely lame and so out of place they were painful to watch.

- Why in the hell would Ginny ever offer to tie Harry's shoes?

- Now this is another stupid small thing, but during the scene at the Weasley's right before Harry runs outside Tonks addresses Lupin as "sweetheart" or "darling" and that was so "off" it's crazy. She was supposed to be utterly depressed that Lupin wouldn't continue a relationship with her.

- You can tell from watching the movie they were trying to throw in as many book references in as possible, and it made the movie a little sloppy. It would have been better to cut what needed to be cut and make the story line move more smoothly. It also begs the question: Why, if they couldn't even manage the book references, did they invent scenes that never even took place in the book and did nothing to improve upon the movie's story line?

- WHY ON GODS GOOD EARTH DID THEY ALTER THE ENDING? The "real" Harry Potter would never have, in a million years, "hid" under the tower whilst Malfoy confronted Dumbledore. And then make it seem like he stood there because Snape pointed a wand at him? Since when has Harry ever been a coward??? It was key point in the tower scene that Harry didn't act because he physically couldn't act. Dumbledore intended it to be that way.

Sigh, there are so many more gripes, but this is all the treachery I can muster for today. I sincerely hope this isn't a sign of things to come with the Deathly Hallows installments. It will break my heart to have to sit through another debauchery of this nature.


The only thing about this movie that was terrific was the lake scene where Dumbledore and Harry try to retrieve the Horcrux. It was exactly as I'd imagined it, well, almost, I imagined Dumbledore looking a lot more pitiful..otherwise a good representation all around.