Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)

Premise: Harry and Company are back.

Stars: Daniel Radcliffe * Rupert Grint * Emma Watson * Michael Gambon * Alan Rickman * Jim Broadbent

Story: Harry Potter is back, along with Ron, Hermione, Neville, Luna, Dumbledore and the rest. This time Voldemort is a background player, with the direct threats personified by Draco Malfoy, Bellatrix Lestrange, and Severus Snape. A new professor comes to Hogwarts, Professor Slughorn, who holds a key to defeating Voldemort. Harry also develops a relationship with Ginny Weasley, Ron's younger sister, while Ron and Hermione go through the pains of teen love. In the end, Malfoy represents a threat not to Harry, but to Dumbledore himself.

Review: I'm not going to go into how the changes from the book drastically change the feel and tone of the movie. While a couple of important plotlines and pivotal moments remain, a number are changed or outright removed. Instead I'll focus on the weaknesses of the film.

Draco has been established as a whiny ne'er-do-well who is no serious menace to Potter, instead he relies on his thuggish companions and his connections to more powerful menaces to try and ruin Potter's life. In this movie, he is pretty much the same but is being used to represent the main in-story threat, aside from vague menace from a silent voiceless character who appears vaguely wolfish (Fenrir Greyback is the name and it is seen briefly on a newspaper) and Bellatrix Lestrange who appears a couple of times to try and embody Voldemort's threat at the beginning and end of the film. So the movie lacks a primary credible threat, as Potter has demonstrated multiple times before that he can defeat Malfoy through his wits.

The teen love that dominates the majority of the film is focused on Ron and Hermione. While the performance of Lavendar Brown is refreshing at first, it quickly becomes grating - as it does for Ron in the storyline. Hermione's love affair with Cormac McLaggen plays mainly as her avoidance of a boor who is simultaneously Ron's rival in Quidditch. Luna and Harry have a date, but Harry's eyes are kept on Ginny Weasley. The problem with both romances is that both female characters are played as lovestruck fools - and in Ginny's case mostly a cipher with no established character of her own. Hermione spends most of the movie in an amped up performance of her scenes in earlier films - crying and miserable.

Slughorn (Broadbent), however, is a refreshing change and is a scene stealer when he appears. In his dealings with Dumbledore and Harry, he provides a refreshing change from the teen angst that goes on elsewhere.

Dumbledore (Gambon) is no longer the pre-eminent, wise and seemingly invincible wizard he was in the earlier movies. From his first appearance, Dumbledore appears worn down and constantly weakening - which could be understood if one knew the context from the book, but which is not explained in the movie.

There are pivotal scenes retained from the book, but as a result of the editing presented in condensing a thick text, the film doesn't really captivate the audience, aside from the initial Pottermania euphoria which accompanies every film. As a result, this film feels more like a filler episode in a series, where characters are slightly fleshed out, but it only serves to whet the appetite for a follow-up film - in this case the two adaptations of the follow-up novel.

Overall: Mediocre

Other Sites: Wikipedia * IMDb * AllMovie * Rotten Tomatoes

The Spiderwick Chronicles (2008)

Links: IMDb * Wikipedia * AllMovie * Rotten Tomatoes

Premise: A troubled family inherits a house with a secret - a book that contains the secrets to the invisible world of faeries and goblins.

Stars: Mary-Louise Parker * Freddie Highmore * Sarah Bolger * Nick Nolte * Seth Rogen (voice) * David Strathairn * Joan Plowright * Martin Short (voice)

Story: Simon and Jared Grace (Highmore), their sister Mallory (Bolger) and mother Helen (Parker) pack up their things and move to an inherited home. Jared discovers a book by Spiderwick (Strathairn) that describes the hidden beings that inhabit the world, which leads to one of the evil beings of that world - the ogre Mulgarath (Nick Nolte) - coming after him and his family.

Review: The special effects are eye-catching - the fairies, the sylphs, even the goblins - but after a decade now of Harry Potter, Star Wars prequels, Lord of the Rings, Narnia, etc. effects are no longer the attention-grabbing definition of a movie that some seem to believe they are. This film relies on a children's book but loses a lot of the wonder that seems to define children's movies. Even though they are entertaining, effects just can't make a movie by themselves. They should be used to enhance a film.

Highmore is definitely distracting when playing the roles of the twins. His performance as Simon is flat and uninvolving, while that of Jared appears to make the character have disconnected personalities. Sarah Bolger as the older sister does well, but Mary-Louise Parker seems miscast. As effects can't carry a movie by themselves, a decent performance by one family member can't do the supposed difficulties they are going through well enough.

I'd recommend it for the effects alone, simply because they are nice to see, but the movie falls flat. The only real delights are Hogsqueal the hobgoblin (Rogen) and Thimbletack the Brownie (Short), but like I said, they and Bolger can't carry the film by themselves.

Overall: Bad

Ghost Rider

From 2007--

Watched Ghost Rider with Cameron and Doug Friday night... http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0259324/...

Directed by: Mark Steven Johnson

Stars: Nicolas Cage, Peter Fonda, Eva Mendes, Donal Logue

Review: The movie was OK, but seriously Cage should not have played Danny Ketch, er Johnny Blaze (the name was Johnny, the appearance and everything else was Ketch).. Honestly, the man is like ten years older than Eva Mendes, and he looks it... they're supposed to be the same age, right? And what's with the Elvis pose with the finger pointing?

Ghost Rider himself was pretty cool, but the movie was like a video game... Level 1, defeat the earth guy.. Level 2, defeat the air guy... Level 3, defeat the water guy... By the way, wtf is a swamp doing in the middle of the desert in Texas? It was like a goddamn bayou right next to a desert town... Btw, when you looked down the hill from where Sam Elliot was, THERE WAS NO DAMN SWAMP.... And level 5, defeat Blackheart... Speaking of Sam Elliot, yeah was pretty sweet having the character of Carter Slade (the original Ghost Rider) appear, but just to turn into a Ghost Rider form and then ride off into mist? What the hell?!?

And Peter Fonda did his best Gary Oldman as Dracula imitation... That was lame....

Plot hole... the cops arrest Johnny Blaze as he was a suspect? Wouldn't he have been a 'person of interest' who would only be taken in for questioning and released? Then he turns into GR IN JAIL and walks out? And only one cop tries to stop him, yet the entire police force shows up minutes later chasing him in the cars that were parked outside the police station? Jeebus... piss poor writing...

Still, the f/x were nice...

Score: Bad