Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

If you haven’t seen all of the previous Harry Potter moves, and you haven’t read the books, do not go see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. On the other hand, if you’ve engaged the franchise up to this point, the latest installment will be well worth the price of admission. It’s a fantastic, gripping story that will keep you leaning forward in your seat and jumping at exciting points. Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson all reprise their roles, and continue to grow as our favorite underage British spell slingers.
The movie picks up right where the last Potter movie, Order of the Phoenix, left off. Harry is immediately plunged into a world of dangerous magic and dark wizards with no explanation of what’s been going on up to this point. Once again, fantastic if you know what’s going on. Potter’s adventure lasts for the next two hours and change, and never drags or plods along. Adolescent crushes, mishaps with love potions in candy, and “fixing” a quidditch match do nothing to suppress the environment of danger in this film, but do break up the action with plenty of laughs and interesting sequences. These young wizards and witches are teenagers, and have all the normal teenager problems without becoming annoying high-school students. They’re such good kids.
An interesting theme I noticed in Half-Blood Prince is the basic storyline difference between it and the other movies. Each Harry Potter film up to this one can be examined as a self-contained storyline with a larger metaplot linking the stories together. Half-Blood Prince makes no almost no attempt to continue this pattern, instead focusing almost entirely on the struggle to defeat Lord Voldemort. There is a story involving a former Hogwarts professor Horace Slughorn (Jim Broadbent) returning, and Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) asking Harry to retrieve a memory from the returned professor. This, however, serves as a clue to defeating Voldemort, and involves the good guys taking the fight to the dark wizard and being proactive instead of sitting around and thwarting his plans as usual. It’s a nice change of pace; I always enjoy watching the good guys take the offensive.
All of the favorites are back in their smaller roles, Robbie Coltrane plays Hagrid with his standard heart of gold, and Alan Rickman simply oozes over his lines as Severus Snape, my personal favorite character and performance. The sets are the same high-quality we’ve come to expect from the franchise, and director David Yates keeps the action flowing.
The only real complaint I’d have about the movie involves the ending. Without revealing any spoilers, I felt like I missed a couple minutes of the movie at the tail end. Everything wraps up as nicely as can be expected for a movie that is intended to be a segue for the finale of the series, but it does feel like the credits roll about three minutes too early.
I give Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince four stars, and recommend it for anyone who hasn’t lived in a cave for the last decade or so. If, however, you have been able to ignore Harry Potter enough to not know the story, you will be Lost with a capital “L.”

Public Enemies

Earlier this year, I saw a trailer for a movie I simply had to see. Somebody got the brilliant idea to cast both Johnny Depp and Christian Bale in a good old fashioned cops and robbers shoot-‘em-up. This last Wednesday, Public Enemies premiered and I couldn’t wait to go watch it. About halfway through, when my popcorn and jumbo Coke ran dry, I realized there is one co-star that the casting director should have placed alongside the two superstars; Plot.

Public Enemies follows the infamous bank robber John Dillinger (Depp) in a violent crime spree across the country, and the actions of Melvin Purvis (Bale), the Bureau of Investigation special agent assigned to stop him. The historical backdrop involves the birth of the FBI and the idea of interstate law enforcement. All in all, great fuel for an exciting night at the movies.

Public Enemies has no excuse to be anything but a damn fine film. Director Michael Mann walked in with a great bit of subject material and some incredible star power behind him to get the job done. Indeed, the movie started out strong, with an entertaining jail break followed by the heists and cop chases you’d normally expect from a film of this ilk. The problems come later.

Despite Depp and Bale’s excellent acting, the slow pace of the movie drags it into the mud for about an hour and a half. Few scenes do much to advance a storyline, instead appearing as a random sequence of events that drag along. The sequences that should be interesting possess huge flaws that drain the fun from them. For example, John Dillinger robbing a bank is a great scene. Doing it twice in the span of an hour, with identical means, results, and background music just makes me wonder if Bill Murray hit his alarm clock in the wrong picture. How about a large shootout at a secluded cabin in the woods with over a dozen people blaring away with tommy guns and stolen cars? Great, except for the shaky camera that darts around too fast to see, and the continuous bright flashes in the dark that would make an epileptic nervous at best.

The film quality is good, the acting sharp and the period environment is wonderful. All these things save Public Enemies from the adjective of “unwatchable,” and barely lifting it to “tolerable.” I love a good action movie with lots of gunfire. I like a well done, artistic, soulful action movie with flawed heroes and villains who are at their heart human. I even appreciate good action movies with quirky characters that make me wonder what they’re going to do next or good action movies with historical backgrounds that make me want to learn something about the past. Public Enemies attempts all of these, but doesn’t get the “good” part right.

Between the repetitive scenes, seizure-inducing gunfight, wobbly camera and complete lack of a plot, Public Enemies is only for those who really, really enjoy Johnny Depp or Christian Bale. They’re the only two things about this movie worth seeing. Two stars, and firmly in that range.