Diverging Worlds

Alright, so for my first official post as a writer for The Tartar Sauce, I've violated one of my cardinal rules of internet movie reviewing: don't wait too long, otherwise things will begin to suck as immediate impressions fade away. But I think we're gonna be okay today, because my complaint is critical and concrete, namely that in deviating too far from the original books, this "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" shenanigan ceases to be a part of the same magical world that Rowling started and now belongs firmly to the studios and whatever director happens to jump on board for the next installment. First, a disclaimer: I am a chronic re-reader of books; I've read most of the Harry Potter series at least twice, more so for the older books (except the second book. Fuck the second book), and I have a pretty sound memory for detail and the nuances of Rowling's storytelling. I also went back and read the sixth and seventh books again at the beginning of the summer, just because. So I walked into that midnight showing full of knowledge and a deep respect for the imaginative work that the films attempt to pay homage to. Time for our first major digression: the Harry Potter series is wonderful. It might not be groundbreaking in the sense of Joyce or similar dudes, and it might not even qualify as great literature, but it's a story of the old school, a tale of magic and clear-cut good and evil, and Rowling tells it with charm and good grace. Seems to me like these days, stories aren't the same as they used to be. They're derivative, designed to be serialized, oversexed and overviolenced, and generally just not very good. To me, the imagination and tradition and, for lack of a better term, balls have fled the field of storytelling, only to be replaced by mediocrity and money-grubbing tendencies. Harry Potter was a welcome deviation from this depressing norm: a wild retelling of our tedious modern world, done with a sly and subversive sense of humor coupled with a wild sense of joy for the rampant use of magic! Magic actually says it all- the books are magical, fun and elating, and even a little bit morally elevating. Here you have young Harry, a dude kind of fucked around by the non-magic world, given the opportunity via wild powers to run amok and enact revenge, but instead he stays true to Spike Lee and does the right thing. Admittedly my biggest complaint with the books is the lack of a moral gray area, but sometimes it's comforting to see moral absolutes occasionally, the traditional story of good and evil. But it's this moral absolutism that saves the series when it, as one of my friends complains, kind of loses the fun by becoming just another story of good guys vs. bad guys. It's the world of magic that's at risk, so the traditional story gains epic status. Rowling built a world that everyone loves and wishes to be a part of, and then threw it into peril. We've got three elements: a universally beloved dazzling/imaginative world, a traditional tale of the battle between good and evil, and sheer good storytelling ability. We might not have touched on this topic as much yet, but it's what ties everything together. The stories proceed at a good pace, the background details aren't overpowering, but are enough to provide flavor while simultaneously obscuring future key plot elements (Peruvian Instant Darkness powder anyone?), and at the same time providing a wonderful tone, some might even go so far as to call it magical. In a wildly convoluted paragraph, that is why the Harry Potter books are great, and anyone who disagrees can argue it out with me later. It's time for movie reviews. This, these, my above reasons for the universal pleasure Harry Potter brings, is why the movie was so weak. It's one thing to have a significant case of deviates-from-the-book-itus, but it's another thing to fuck with tone and central elements and then go and brand something as a member of the same species. "Lord of the Rings" shaves off some plot elements (understandable, as Tolkien went kind of nuts with the background information), but maintains the same spirit of the original books, and actually in a more accessible language than the sometimes impenetrable books. This new breed of "Harry Potter," however, isn't really anything like the books, rather in name only. We've got a short Harry (the subject of many an actually funny joke), overly CGI magic that's not as fun as overwhelming, the expected major deviation from plot elements, only in surprising new directions, like the elimination of fight scenes and the addition of extraneous scenes, and a general sacrifice of the subversively cheeky tone that characterized the books. I know the sixth book is the dark book, but the text didn't read that way. So why must the movie be so dour? It's not all bad though. The actors do a fine job, especially the professors: Alan Rickman is a wonderful Snape, the dude who plays Slughorn is also pretty cool, even though he's not at all what the book says he should be, and our trio of heros do fine work as their lovely selves. Draco Malfoy also gets a nod for being more involved than in the other movies. The central thing of it is that none of this really messes with our conceptions of what the characters were like in our imaginations when we read the books because none of the characters really resemble anything from the books. This is a good thing in the sense that our reading, imaginary world is still intact, but bad because the movie suffers in comparison. On its own, it's a not too shabby story of magical kids growing up and being awkward about relationships, with some talk of Horcruxes thrown in. It's just the comparison that makes it weak. This is by no means a Harry Potter film, just a pretty good variation of a much better theme. Slightly disappointing, but not without its merits.