This film though turned out to be more engaging to me than most of the Potter films have been and miles better than the last film. Book purists, and yes I’m usually one of them, will I’m sure argue that too many sub-plots and characters were left out and that even the odd scene appeared that shouldn’t have been there but, this version, stripped down it may have been, suited me better. It left you needing to know less about what had come before or even after in the series.
Most of the baffling bits came early but even I could follow the Millennium Bridge being destroyed by the Death Eaters, so it's no wonder Harry is reluctant to return to Hogwarts, where security has been tightened to keep those Death Eaters out for his sixth year and it’s not just because he’s chosen the wrong ‘A’ level subjects. That old geezer Dumbledor persuades him to go back and Harry doesn’t seem too bothered that he has to stand up the girl he’d just chatted up at the tube station. Why Harry, why? Oh yes, of course, there’s always Ginny Weasley.
The baffling bits give way to a more human story. Ron gets to become Gryffindor's number one, as in their Quidditch goalie, thanks to Harry boosting his confidence by pretending to give him a luck potion. Good job he didn’t, statutory two year ban for drug cheats these days.
Ron's success pulls the babes; well it pulls Lavender Brown. Hermione is thrilled for them, not. Meanwhile Harry continues to have the hots for Ginny. Which is hardly surprising when she meets him in her dressing gown and then when she got down on her knees in front of him we all held our breath in the cinema... and then she tied his shoelaces.
There’s perhaps too much of the plot concerned with the vagaries of young love, Oh please someone bang all their heads together, but it lightened the darkness of the rest of it. The dark parts of the film certainly were dark and moody, also just like a teenager.
I even follow the clever bit about the tampered memory of Horace Slughorn, (see I have been listening) although isn’t that something we all do, all the time. Jim Broadbent as Slughorn the potions teacher would probably have stolen the show, had it not been for the ever excellent Alan Rickman as Snape. Harry uses the tried and tested routine of getting Slughorn drunk, with the help of Hagrid to jog his memory and fill in the blankety blanks.
Of course it all lost me a bit again at the end with all this talk of Horcruxes but Wikipedia put me straight later.
So not a bad film although I notice with each one they use more and more CGI in the sets whereas I’m sure the earlier films were basically set in real castles. They’ll probably CGI the cast next, so they can keep making films beyond the last book. A CGI Helena Bonham Carter could possibly be even scarier than the real thing, and she’s pretty scary already as the mightily strange Bellatrix Lestrange.
The lack of an ending makes it obvious there’s more to come... but of course you knew that already.
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