Battle: Los Angeles

Okay, so Transformers: Dark of the Moon kind of sucked.  It had all the destruction I could ask for, but it was long and had way too much of what the filmmakers considered "humor" and "plot."  What a let down!  Where's a guy supposed to find a movie about aliens blowing up a US city this summer?  Well...Battle: Los Angeles recently hit DVD.  It couldn't be worse than Transformers 3, could it?  Oh, it's directed by Jonathan Liebesman, the man behind Darkness Falls?  Maybe I spoke too soon.

US Marine Staff Sergent (apparently abbreviated SSgt.) Michael Nantz (Aaron Eckhart) has a severe case of Roger Murtaugh Syndrome.

He's getting too old for this shit.

Not only is he too old, but he even put in his retirement papers!  Today!  Man, I'm going to miss that guy.  Sure, he lost his entire battalion during his last tour of Iraq and all the newbies consider him the Grim Reaper, but he's a pretty nice guy.  It's just too bad that, this close to retirement, a bunch of meteorites crash into the Earth, only a few miles away from most major port cities.  America prepares for some Deep Impact special effects, but they never come.  That's the good news.  The bad news is that the "meteorites" were actually spaceships carrying alien infantry soldiers, bent on destroying humanity. 

Yeah.  I know.  Aliens.  Shit.

SSgt. Nantz is forced back into action under 2nd Lieutenant Martinez (Ramon Rodriguez), who has never seen combat, and his crew of green marines.  Their mission is to clear civilians from a certain perimeter in LA before the US launches an air strike that will annihilate the aliens.  But then, it turns out that the aliens look like this:

Oh, and they have alien technology, which kills lots of people.  And it turns out that they have an air force, too, which negates the whole air strike plan.  With his team decimated and humanity quickly approaching extinction, what is SSgt. Nantz to do?

With all the explosions and aliens, I wasn't really expecting much from the actors in this movie.  They didn't give me much, but I was surprised that the acting was decent.  Aaron Eckhart was fine as the conflicted lead, even if this part was written more for someone with the acting range of Jean-Claude Van Damme than a Golden Globe nominee.  Ramon Rodriguez was predictable as the cocky noob leader that loses his composure when things start to go wrong.  Michelle Rodriguez (no relation) played against type by taking the part of an Air Force strategist (or something); of course, it turns out that she's a total bad-ass.  The rest of the cast is pretty inconsequential.  Michael Pena was okay as a concerned father, Bridget Moynahan was a tough lady veterinarian, and Joey King cried a lot as a frightened little girl.  The military cannon fodder supporting cast included such luminaries as career TV bit players Noel Fisher and Jim Parrack, R&B singer Ne-Yo, and Cory Hardrict.  No one was awful, and many characters either spoke little or died horrible deaths.

Does this mean that Two-Face was a result of PTSD?

I was shocked to find that this film was directed by the incompetent Jonathan Liebesman.  While this isn't French New Wave or anything fancy like that, I thought this movie was shot well enough to tell a story.  That might not sound impressive to you, but being mediocre was far from his grasp in the last film of his I watched.  No, the acting isn't great, but it suits its purpose.  This is a movie with mostly unemotional soldiers being attacked by aliens.  Do I need feelings and fancy camera work, or do I need cool-looking alien stuff and lots of explosions?  You're damn right (assuming you went with aliens and boomsplosions)!  The special effects are solid, the action is dirty and gritty, and the aliens don't make me laugh.  There aren't many moments that will wow you, but it's still a solid sci-fi flick.

For what it is, Battle: Los Angeles is a surprisingly decent movie.  It's not intelligent, ground-breaking, or totally awesome, but it tells a story and provides some brainless entertainment, especially for fans of military movies.  Battle: LA spends a lot of time on the bond of trust between soldiers and their leaders, and even if some of it is a little cheesy (and it is), it is effective, in a testosterone-filled, never-speak-your-feelings sort of way.  Maybe I just came into this one with super-low expectations, but I'm going to say this was better than average.

Body Heat

I have been putting off watching Body Heat for some time now; all I really knew about it was that it was supposed to be extra-steamy and sexy, with William Hurt and Kathleen "Man Voice" Turner as the lovers.  That idea never stimulated me enough to watch this acclaimed movie.  I finally buckled down and sat down for a viewing and was immediately and pleasantly surprised --- this thing is a neo-noir!  Awesome!  Some of my favorite films are classic noirs from the 1940s and 50s, and I have been appreciating the more modern homages to the style lately, too.  So, right off the bat, there is more to enjoy here than Man Voice and Mr. Male Pattern Baldness having another stab at the themes from Last Tango in Paris.  I cannot express just how happy that realization made me.

Ned Racine (William Hurt) is a low-rent Florida lawyer for sleazebags and people who want to frivolously sue.  He's a funny guy, aware of his lot in life, and he is infamous for sleeping with anything with a heartbeat.  Florida is in the midst of an oppressive heat wave, causing people to only talk about the weather; Ned's cop buddy also argues that the heat causes more crime because people start to believe that the rules of civilized life have stopped applying.  Well, one night, Ned happens to spot the striking Matty Walker (Kathleen Turner) walking unescorted through town.  Ned takes this as his cue to mercilessly hit on her, even after she tells him that she's married (but out of town.  "My favorite kind," he replied). 

Ned, quoting the market price for mustache rides.

Despite herself, Matty takes a shine to Ned and the two eventually retreat to her palatial home for some sweaty naked time.  Matty's husband, Edmund (Richard Crenna), is only home on the weekends, so the two are free to flaunt their post-coital bodies all around the house, without a care.  But things start to get serious.  Ned can't stop thinking about Matty and risks seeing her, even when he knows Edmund's around.  It's just as bad for Matty --- she has talked about leaving Edmund, but he had her sign a prenuptial agreement, so she would leave the marriage with a pittance.  But if Edmund were to die, Matty would get at least half of his estate...hmm...

Great.  It's hot, she's using him as a pillow, and she's a mouth-breather.

I tend to enjoy William Hurt's acting, and Body Heat is certainly no exception.  He does a remarkable job of being very likable and seemingly bright, but simultaneously sleazy and dumb.  This is important, because we watch the movie through his perspective.  Kathleen Turner, in her film debut, was an excellent femme fatale.  I'm not usually a fan of Turner's (to be fair, I have pretty much missed her in her heyday), but she was obviously dangerous and sensual, which made her irresistible pull on Ned Racine plausible.  Richard Crenna (Col. Trautman from the Rambo series) was unsympathetic in his small part, which was exactly what he needed to be.  Ted Danson, in a rare pre-Cheers role, was very likable as Ned's competent lawyer friend, and the guy who flat-out tells him that Matty is bad news.  Mickey Rourke also makes an early-career appearance as an accused (but not convicted) arsonist; he has the film's best line:

Anytime you try a decent crime, you got fifty ways you can fuck up. If you think of twenty-five of them, you're a genius. And you ain't no genius.

Mickey speaks the truth.  For his friends.

This was Lawrence Kasdan's first directorial effort, after co-writing the last two of the original Star Wars trilogy and Raiders of the Lost Ark.  After Body Heat (which he also wrote), he would be almost exclusively a writer-director, usually of Kevin Kline vehicles.  I loved his style in this movie.  It is clearly evoking and referencing noirs of the past, most notably Double Indemnity, but the writing feels fresh.  The acting was very good, too, but Kasdan had the most important task in the film.  He had to convince the audience that Ned's decision to do something stupid, dangerous, and illegal in exchange for the promise of money and sex made sense.  If someone, let's be gender-biased and say it's a lady, walked into this movie halfway through, she might scoff at this notion; after all, who is stupid enough to risk life and limb for sex?  Men, that's who.  Kasdan made the sex scenes earlier in the film so sweaty and lusty that having Ned's little head doing the thinking for him seemed natural and even inevitable.  That's some good filmmaking.

Matty, indicating the general area Ned wants to occupy.

Despite owing quite a bit to other noirs that I have seen, Body Heat is the first movie (that I can think of) that made the dangerous sexuality of the femme fatale character explicit.  That's kind of a big deal, even if it paved the way for Basic Instinct.  More importantly, Lawrence Kasdan was able to leave his own mark on a genre that resists change, and he did so with good actors and writing.

Night Moves

With a poster like that, how can you not want to watch this movie?  Right off the bat, you know this movie has a plane, a naked chick swimming (possibly through the air), and Gene Hackman's famous locks, flowing in the wind.  Actually, I watched Night Moves because I'm a fan of Gene Hackman, especially when he plays intelligent characters; he's a private eye in this movie, so this sounded right up my alley.

Harry Moseby (Gene Hackman) is a retired football player turned private eye.  He doesn't handle big, important cases, or even cases that leave him with a moderately clean feeling, but he likes the idea of his work.  His devotion to the job doesn't win him any fans at home; his wife, Ellen (Susan Clark), is having an affair.  Of course, Harry finds out --- he's an investigator, after all --- and he's devastated.  As luck would have it, Harry can postpone the dreaded "we need to talk" moment with his wife by taking a case for an over-the-hill Hollywood sexpot.  She wants Harry to track down her runaway daughter, the unfortunately named Delly (Melanie Griffith), and is so concerned over her daughter's well-being that she flirts mercilessly with Harry.  Harry does some digging, and learns that the sixteen year-old Delly is a notorious tramp.  She ran away from home with a Hollywood mechanic, Quentin (James Woods), then ran into the pelvic thrust of a douchebag stunt driver, and then ran to her stepfather's (John Crawford) home in Florida.  Just because he found the girl doesn't mean that Harry knows what he's doing.  The longer he spends on this case, the less straightforward it seems, proving that even a smart man like Harry can still be very, very wrong.

Yeah, that's kind of how I felt when the movie ended, too.

Night Moves was far from a critical or financial success upon its 1975 release, but the seventies were a strange time in the film industry, filled with new film styles and abrupt endings.  Whatever the reasons for its initial failure, Night Moves has grown more appreciated over time, thanks largely to the great and subtle performance of Gene Hackman.  I don't even know how to give his performance a just summary; he's smart, but easily fooled; he's physically tough, but emotionally tender; he's very reserved at times, but brash at others.  The best thing about Hackman's performance is how believable it is.  The rest of the cast is good, too.  Jennifer Warren is surprisingly good as a person of (romantic) interest in the case; this kind of complex supporting role is a shoe-in nowadays for an Oscar nomination.  I'm not quite sure how believable her attraction to the men in this film is, but people were often ugly in the seventies.

It's easy to be infatuated with Gene Hackman when his face is obscured by a tree trunk.

Perhaps the most shocking performance for me was that of a then seventeen year-old Melanie Griffith as the nudity-loving (yes, at seventeen) Delly.  It's not just that Griffith is almost unrecognizable as a teen, but she did a very good job in her frequently naked role. 

Where did all the swollen face lumps go?

The rest of the cast was solid, but not particularly noteworthy.  Susan Clark was fine as Harry's wife and James Woods was okay in a small (and also almost unrecognizable) part, where he snarled ineffectively a few times.

The script by Alan Sharp and the direction by Arthur Penn do the rest of the work.  And work, they do!  This is a phenomenal script.  It is rare to have a script filled with clever (and non-zinger) lines, but this one is very nuanced in how it advances the plot and gives compelling glimpses into the minds of the characters.  I look forward to watching this movie a second time; I have the feeling that many of the lines will have new meanings, now that I have seen the ending.  Arthur Penn did a great job working with this script and the actors.  It is rare for a movie to be enjoyable and confusing at the same time, but Penn manages to get multi-layered line readings from the entire cast, filled with shades of grey, and he has the guts to provide a conclusion that asks a question.

Whatever happens here, I doubt that it's happy.

I did have one issue with the script and direction, though.  What was with the romances in this movie?  I have no problem with unattractive or moderately attractive men in movies having beautiful romantic interests, but this movie pushes my suspension of disbelief a little too much.

When this movie finished, I wasn't particularly impressed.  Sure, I acknowledged the talent of in-his-prime Hackman, but I was left a little cold by the ending.  It's confusing, to put it mildly.  A funny thing happened as I started to summarize the plot in my head, though; I started to reflect on the many instances where Harry was wrong, even when I (as a viewer) assumed he would be right.  That got me thinking about other parts of the movie, and I began to appreciate the non-sequitors in the dialogue and the depth they gave the plot.  Can I explain the whys of this story?  Absolutely not, but I can accurately describe the plot.  It's easy to understand what happened, but understanding the why is what makes this one special.  I'm going to give this a moderate rating now, but I think I'll bump it up whenever I decide to watch it again.  It's a grower that I look forward to discussing at length with friends.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

For franchises that have built up an enormous audience, filming sequels back-to-back seems like a smart move to save on production costs and make multiple movies at once, which are virtually guaranteed to be cash cows.  Critters 3 and Critters 4 are probably the best examples of this, but what about the sequels to Back to the Future, The Matrix, and Pirates of the Caribbean?  They range from fine (but nowhere near as good as the original) to implausibly disappointing to damn near unwatchable --- in that order.  Sure, they made money, but --- aside from the huge gambles that were the Kill Bill and Lord of the Rings productions --- this method usually winds up disappointing fans.  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 did a good job of setting the stage, but it felt incomplete...because it was.  Will that mean that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 will suffer the same fate, or will it manage to do what so many series finales fail to accomplish --- end with a bang?

Where were we?  Oh, yes.  Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) and his wizard buddies are on the run from Mister Frowny Face, AKA Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes), and his Frowny minions.  Voldie has broken his soul into seven parts and hidden the parts all over the globe (or, at least England) in six ordinary objects, with Part 7 being in himself.  Why?  This allows him to survive deadly attacks, as long as part of his soul still exists.  In Part 1, Harry, Hermione (Emma Watson), and Ron (Rupert Grint) had managed to find a way to destroy these soul-holders (that's horcruxes, in wizard-speak) and were left with only three to find and destroy before Voldie could be killed for realz.

"No" means no, Voldemort.  Harry doesn't have to "cross wands" with you.

So...they do that.  They wind up back in Hogwarts wizard school because one of the horcruxes is there; Voldie's people learn about this almost immediately, surround the school, and threaten to kill everyone in the school if they do not hand over Potter.  Since this is a tale of good vs. evil, the Order of the Phoenix (the good guys) show up to protect Harry, Hogwarts, and the students against Voldie and his terrible hordes.  In tough times like these, passions flare, characters die, and special effects take center stage.  You want to see some epic wizard battles?  This is the movie to watch.

I cannot believe that Alice Cooper and John Williams didn't collaborate on a re-recording of "School's Out"

The acting in this final Harry Potter is the best in the series in some ways, and emblematic of its recurring problems in others.  I thought Daniel Radcliffe really stepped up in this movie and held his own in several emotional scenes.  Emma Watson was good as usual, and Rupert Grint --- well, he seemed to have a lot fewer lines.  These three aren't unbelievably fantastic, but they do a great job playing their parts and reacting to their stellar supporting cast.  This film finally gives Ralph Fiennes some screen-time, and he makes the most of it; I won't say this is his best work, but he is both deplorable and pitiable as the mustache-twirling (if he had a nose to hang a 'stache on) villain.  Fans have been waiting for a decade to see Voldemort at his worst, and Fiennes doesn't disappoint.  Similarly, Alan Rickman's Snape character was finally given some emotional depth past his irrational hatred of Harry, and it turned out to be a surprisingly effective scene.

The supporting cast, as always, is distinguished, but doesn't get nearly enough attention to do justice to their talent.  Maggie Smith and the young Bonnie Wright get probably the most attention --- and it is well deserved for Smith --- but Michael Gambon, John Hurt, Jason Isaacs, Jim Broadbent, Gary Oldman, David Thewlis, Emma Thompson, Ciaran Hinds, and Robbie Coltrane have precious little to work with.  I get it, I get it...they're taking character parts to participate in this franchise, but it always makes me sad to see so much talent get stuck in bit parts.  On the bright side, Warwick Davis pulled off a dual-role performance pretty well and Helena Bonham Carter was memorable in her small role, once again.  I was disappointed that Tom Felton's performance took a few steps back, making his character seem like the weenie he was four or five years ago; his part was relatively small in the film, but I would have liked a little less slapstick from him.  Perhaps that disappointment is balanced by the surprisingly effective performances in small parts by Evanna Lynch and Matthew Lewis; both have been in the series for years as minor players, but they impressed me with more visible parts here.  Oh, and as a fan of kinetic 90s British cinema, I was happy to see Kelly Macdonald (Trainspotting) and Nick Moran (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels) in small roles.

Matthew Lewis had to fight (and, presumably, lose) for his screen time

While this was never going to be a movie about the acting, it sure was nice to see that the cast wasn't Transformers-bad.  But that's just a pleasant bonus.  This is the movie that was finally going to fulfill the promise of an all-out wizard battle, with the forces of good taking on the hordes of evil.  And you know what?  It totally delivered on that promise.  This is, by far, the most action-packed Harry Potter film and, because it is the logical conclusion of a decade-long story, it feels very organic.  Most of the time, when a movie opts for the "all action" route, the story gets left behind in favor of bloody explosions.  The Deathly Hallows: Part 2 keeps a pretty fast pace, kills boatloads of witches and wizards, but still has many touching character moments.  More important than all that, this movie acts as a ridiculously satisfying conclusion to the series; it's easy enough for casual viewers to understand, but most of the spells and characters and magical creatures are taken from the earlier films, treating longtime fans by adding a layer to the film that is not always explained explicitly in the script.

There are doubtlessly many fans of the book that are upset over some of the changes that director David Yates made to the story.  Get over it, nerds (says the pot).  Film and prose are different mediums, and overly reverential adaptations usually lead to lifeless movies (The Watchmen, anyone?).  I liked the changes and omissions in this film; they worked with what had been established in the earlier movies, and that's what counts.  I have my own issues with parts of the film, of course.  I was hoping to see more creative wizard fights, like the Dumbledore vs. Voldemort battle that ended The Order of the Phoenix.  Sure, the battle scenes were hectic and cool, but in a world with so much potential for creativity, I thought I would see more colorful uses of magic.  The more I think about that, the more disappointed I am.  As for the epilogue...I'm not a huge fan, even though I see the storytelling value of coming full-circle; I think a few more minutes of Harry pondering Snape's motives would have made that final scene truly powerful, but it's still pretty decent, even if it's not my cup of tea.  I'm also not sure how well the two parts of this story will stand up on their own as time goes on; I just re-watched Part 1 this week, so the story was fresh in my mind, but will I eventually go back and watch Part 2 on its own?  I have no idea.

Squiggly lights?  What happened to fire demons, dude?

That is just me nitpicking, though.  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 manages to do an astounding number of things right.  For starters, it's the shortest film in the series, and it spends precious little time with Harry and his friends safe from harm; this is definitely the most exciting movie in the series.  The acting is all good, and there are a number of tear-jerking moments, which is something you rarely see in a film with so much action.  The destruction of Hogwarts was pretty awesome and the characters all looked like they had been fighting in rubble for days.  This film should go down as one of the best final chapters of any franchise.  It was violent, cute, and cathartic in a major way.  Congrats, HP crew.  This is how you tell a satisfying ending.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

As I type this, my wife is counting down the minutes until we catch the final Harry Potter later tonight.  To prepare for the last installment, we re-watched (and I reviewed) the most recent entries in the series, including this film, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.  Sadly, even with me paying close attention, I was unable to find any Prince in this film.

Half-Blood, Half-Funk, and All-Awesome.  And weird.

So, what happens in the sixth Harry Potter film?  Well, after Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) was vindicated at the end of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the wizarding world now accepts that the evil wizard Lord Voldemort is alive and well.  While the good guys are presumably hunting down the baddies, Harry and his friends return to Hogwarts school for another year that will inevitably feature Lord Voldemort trying to kill Harry, once again.  Or...maybe not...?  This time around, it seems that LoVo (as the tabloids call him, probably) has given Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton) an important task; Draco has always been Potter's schoolmate nemesis, but this is the first time he is actually given the opportunity to be EEE-veel.

You can't wash off jerk, Draco

While Draco attempts to perform his nastiness (that somehow involves a cabinet), Harry is busy helping Professor Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) learn about Lord Voldemort.  You see, LoVo is a powerful dark wizard, but even he should have died at least a few times already in this film series; it is up to Harry to gather the secret to LoVo's resilience.  While the two major plots develop, we get the usual look at magical school life, only this time with some teenage romances. 

Snogging: apparently British slang for sniffing each other

One of the reasons I enjoy The Half-Blood Prince is that it mixes things up a bit.  Instead of waiting a whole movie to see exactly how LoVo is going to attack Harry (and fail...again), both sides take the offensive.  Harry and Dumbledore are searching for knowledge, which will indicate a weakness in LoVo's proverbial armor.   We finally get to see a student do something that isn't good when Draco helps LoVo and his cronies, the Death Eaters.  We even get to see Professor Snape (Alan Rickman) acting as a double-agent for Dumbledore when he pretends to be a Death Eater --- or maybe he's a triple-agent that's pretending to be pretending!  Whatever the case, this is a much needed development for Snape in this series, because he has been the Harry Potter equivalent of Red Herring from A Pup Named Scooby-Doo for far too long.

Possibly not a screen-shot

The acting improvements in the series continue in The Half-Blood Prince.  Daniel Radcliffe adds a bit of subtlety to his performance this time around and his "magically lucky" scene performances are pretty amusing, even if he appears to just be really, really high.  Emma Watson continues to be the best young actor in the cast; I thought she did a good job with her romantic subplot.  Rupert Grint continues to be an ugly red head, but he appears to be more than willing to look silly on camera and his comic performances continue to improve here.  He's still not much of a dramatic actor, but that may just be because I hate looking at his face.

L-R: Daniel, Emma, Ugly, Tom, Alan

Tom Felton was pretty good as the nasty Draco, but his ineffective hoodlum role from the earlier movies contrasts sharply with his brooding/sulking in this film; I will admit that the face-stomping he delivers toward the start of the movie is the coolest thing Draco ever did.  Bonnie Wright emerged as Harry's love interest in this movie; she has had small parts in each of the other films, but this was her biggest role to date.  She was pretty decent with the adolescent awkwardness, but even her newly expanded role didn't give her much to do.

The adult cast is its solid self again.  Both Michael Gambon and Alan Rickman's characters get much more screen time in this film than ever before, and each one has a few very nice moments on screen.  The requisite new cast member is Jim Broadbent, who is always a treat to watch.  His character is a little weaselly, but Broadbent does a good job exuding a blend of ego and cowardice.  Helena Bonham Carter returns as the crazed villain, Bellatrix, and she cackles her way through the movie.  Ralph Fiennes, as the evil Lord Voldemort...is actually not in this movie at all.  Huh.  I had to double-check his IMDb page to verify that, but it's true.  The rest of the adult cast --- Maggie Smith, Robbie Coltrane, Julie Walters, David Thewlis, Warwick Davis, etc. --- are solid supporting actors, even if they only get a few minutes on camera.

"Give me an L...!"

There's nothing wrong with the look and feel of this movie, either.  David Yates directed another solid movie with excellent pacing, a nice balance of comedy and drama, and a great instinct on what subplots from the novel to not include in the film.  There are a few moments where I wondered why the wizards didn't have a magical work-around in a particular situation, but I generally liked what he did and the performances he got from the cast.

Wizards haven't figured out an umbrella spell yet?

I have to admit that I am not the biggest fan of this story, though.  Yes, it has a pretty sweet Empire Strikes Back ending, but it's not enough.  There isn't nearly enough build-up with the mystery of who the Half-Blood Prince was, so when his identity is revealed, there is no pay off.  It felt like the movie hadn't even mentioned the sub-titular character for about an hour when he steps forward and identifies himself; that's nice, buddy, but the movie stopped caring about your code-name a while ago.  The biggest flaw in the story (which caused my wife to hate this movie when we first watched it) involves the use to Draco's evil cabinet.  SPOILER ALERT: Using the cabinet to bring Death Eaters into Hogwarts is a pretty cool idea.  What do they do when they arrive, after two hours of waiting to see what they will do?  They heckle Draco, watch Dumbledore die, and break some dinnerware.  And that's it.  The most bloodthirsty, murdering witches and wizards on the planet have full reign of a school full of frightened children and only a handful of teachers --- most of whom are elderly --- and they leave them all unscathed.  They don't even try to wreck the school.  This is by far the most unnecessary subplot in the Harry Potter series, and the long build-up for it just makes it more frustrating.  I understand that Yates didn't want to include the wizard fights that are featured at the end of this book, since the final movie will have plenty o' wizard fights, but that's still pretty lame.  I was also less than thrilled that we were being subjected to the ridiculously scored wizard sport, quidditch, again.  On the bright side, it played a relatively small part of the film.  I'm still not certain why Ron is the only player I can recall in the series that wears an old-timey football helmet to play.

Ron waits for the short wizard-bus

Even with plot flaws, The Half-Blood Prince is still a pretty entertaining movie.  I think it has some of the best acting in the series, as well as some of the cooler visuals.  I was disappointed by the story, though, which downgrades it from "awesome" to "still pretty good."