Harry Potter 6 Review (Semi-Spoilers)

Before I start this off, I want to apologize for not being as active in my blog as I said I would be. Between computer problems and other things, I never got around to putting anything half decent up. My bad.

This isn't going to be a very in-depth review. Just a little overview of what I thought.

I'd read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince about 6 months before the movie came out and I'll have to say that the book was one of my favorites in the series. So, I had high hopes for the movie. For starters, a lot was changed from in the book. I understand that for movie purposes, this has to happen, but I'd have liked them to delve a little deeper into Tom Riddle's childhood. The only flashbacks were to a shortened orphanage scene and to when Tom asks about Horcruxes. The mystery of the Half-Blood Prince is almost entirely absent. Apparation is scrapped. However, I'm not going to judge the movie on similarities to the books, but the director/writers seem to have taken a bit of creative liberty. This really shines in a completely original scene where a group of Dark Wizards plop to the ground in an honest-to-God fireball and attack the Burrow.

I feel like there was a lot of opportunity to make this film pretty scary, but I was sourly disappointed in that aspect. One thing a friend of mine pointed out was that Michael Gambon (the man who plays Dumbledore now) has always played the character a little over-aggressively, but that really seems to work in this story where he is such a central character - he seems to pop like never before. To wrap it all up, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is a solid movie that falls just short of what I expected.

Overall rating: 4/5

I'm sure I could write more, but I'm tired and going to a school orientation tomorrow morning. I'll let you know how it goes.

"The Strangers" Review (Spoilers)

I'm going to start reviewing movies and such. This one will be quick, but maybe I can expand on others in the future.

The Strangers tells the terrifying tale of a home invasion by psychopathic killers. The movie succeeds in mostly giving us long, suspenseful scares rather than the cheap screamers most modern horrow films pump out. It's unfortunately blocked out by how ridiculously stupid the two victims are. I understand that this a a scary movie cliche, but these people are pure idiots. The man is pretty trigger-happy. He shoots his best friend when he comes to investigate. The idiot then just leaves Liv Tyler's character in the house alone as he runs through the pitch-black woods searching for baddies.

Another beef I have with the movie is the crappy acting. Liv Tyler seems dead throughout the whole movie - partially due to relationship problems in the movie, but you'd think she would forget that when three murderers break into their house. Neither of them seem to react the way a normal person would in their situation. They never seem to panic and are way too calm throughout the whole thing.

I don't want to sound like a complainer, but the ending wasn't so great either. The two are finally captured by the strangers, duck-taped to chairs, and stabbed to death. I would have liked to see the bad guys (really a guy and two girls) picked off by the victims one by one, making way for a dramatic fight with the last killer. Oh well.

All in all, it's a scary movie with terrible acting and stupid characters that take away from the overall feel of the movie.

Final Verdict: 3/5