I’ll start by saying that I have read the book, but I read it quite a long time ago. So I didn’t get bogged down in the bits that were missing (at first). The movie was visually stunning, opening with scenes of wizarding evil literally shaking up the non-wizarding world. The movie jumps right in, as it has more ground to cover than it possibly can. Dumbledore arrives, grabs Harry up, and spirits him away. Yep, we’re denied our traditional run in with the Dursleys. We’ll frown for a few seconds and move on.
Dumbledore uses Harry as a bargaining chip to entice a very important Potions teacher back to Hogwarts, Professor Slughorn. In order to complete the maneuver, Snape finally gets his wish to teach Defense of the Dark Arts, but also enters into an Unbreakable Vow with Mama Malfoy to help Dracoy complete his mystery mission. Harry, Ron, and Hermione jump right back into their classes, and due to a last minute change, Harry has to borrow a Potions text book which claims to be the property of the Half Blood Prince. Interesting little mystery right? Well, it gets completely pushed to the back burner so we can watch Harry follow Draco around the castle. Dumbledore breaks out the pensieve and we get to see the great wizard’s first meeting with Tom Riddle. Dumbledore then charges Harry with recovering a vital memory from Professor Slughorn.
It ends up that a lot of story was left on the cutting room floor. The identity of the Half Blood Prince was such a huge let-down. For it to be the title of the movie I think more attention should have been paid to the book, the owner, and set up how the Half Blood Prince’s motivations will play out in the remaining story. There’s a lot of talk about the kids becoming adolescents and exploring romance, but Harry is practically ignored while Ron gets the lion’s share of the attention (I was really looking forward to Harry’s story line). I have to say in the end that with all the trimming done, the movie still came in at a healthy 153 minutes (that felt like no time at all). A lot happened, the pacing was great, and overall it was just a fantastic movie. I can’t wait for the last installments that are currently set for release in 2010.
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Are the visuals worth seeing it in IMAX?
Something tells me it would be very very cool to see in IMAX. If it’s worth the price of your ticket
I think it would awesome in IMAX, despite how disappointed I was in the storyline (how, as Amber said, they left a lot of the story on the cutting room floor.).