But Dumbledore dies in this one

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I thought this film featured the best acting of the series from Grint, Radcliffe, Gambon, Malfoy (I forgot his real name) and Watson. The Harry scenes after he took the luck potion were great.

Although I had pictured the Dumbledore death scene differently, I thought it worked well. There was a good amount of tension there.

There were a couple of moments that reminded me of LOTR: the Dumbledore falling scene, the flashes after Harry touches the ring etc. But it didn't bother me too much.

This movie is definitely a build up to the last two, but it can't very well not be given that the series is coming to a conclusion. The significance of the book and the film is bringing the entire series to the apex. I thought it did it very well. I think the numbers for the last two films will be astronomical. (To use a sentence they used on Sotomayor: outside of a directorial meltdown with the next two films, they will do well.)

Many of the scenes in this film were constructed well. The scenes in the swamp at the Weasley farm were edited wonderfully.

I am glad that the art direction of the 3rd film has carried through to the rest of the series. I like "that look".

I was disappointed that an explaination of what "Half-Blood Prince" means wasn't included in the film, but like it was said before this film is for the people who follow the books and they already know. However, I think there was a missed opportunity to discuss racism in the wizard world.

There was no funeral at the end. I'm thinking they might include it at the beginning of the next film, but who knows. And I could have sworn that the Weasley farm gets burned in the last book. But I could be wrong.

The acting (for the most part - see below), the direction, the script, the editing, the art direction were all good too me. I liked this movie a lot.

I'm still bugged by Helena Bonham Carter's depiction of Bellatrix. It still seems to me like she's acting nutters and not being nutters, if that makes any sense.

And, yes, there was a reason Rickman was cast as Snape. Whoever made that casting decision at the beginning deserves a pat on the back. Yes, we all laughed at his hair at first, but I no doubt believe he will blow us away even more during the next two films. He delivers the performance of a torn soul quite well. His reactions are obscure in the right places and him being the comic relief in certain scenes is quite brilliant.

Whoever played Lavender was great in her role too. She and the girl playing Luna were wonderful in all of their scenes. (I'm glad the lion head hat made an appearance in this film.)

I pictured the scene differently as well. I'm not really sure why, since I knew better but I was thinking it would be more of an Obi-wan scene. Rickman and Malfroy were just amazing in that scene.

I also had those LOTR moments with the scenes as well as the scene when Harry is pulled into the water. They looked like Gollum to me.

I was also disappointed that they didn't further explain what the Half Blood Prince truly means. It was just said so matter of fact like oh, btw, I am the Half Blood Prince.

Leaving out the explaination of the Half Blood Prince was just plain loopy. It's the name of the movie, fer chrissake .... you can't just leave it out. There are tons and tons of people who see these movies but don't read the books.

pretty much sucks as an actor, though his scenes under the influence of the felicitus potion were fantastic, and he has very adept comic timing. But as regular Harry, he's just kinda bleh.

I haven't seen it.

- The shot from below of the Weasleys' staircase was awesome. Heads poking out here and there was cute.

- There's a shot of the hallway where (I think) Harry and Ron were walking down the hall and then to the left we could see Malfoy on a set of stairs quietly panicking.

- Another similar shot with Hogswart kids snogging in the shadows.

One thing I forgot to mention was how phallic the broomsticks were during this movie. "Quidditch" could be a term for something else if it were dark and no one else was looking...

Why did the death eaters even need to go to Hogwarts? They did nothing, apart from kicking over some glasses from the table on the way out, and busting a set of stained glass windows. Oh, that's right, they did burn Hagrids hut (presumably while Hagrid was out the back having a pee), but they weren't neded for the dispatch of Dumbledore at all.

OOoooooooo, scary.

Snape took care of everything that Draco couldn't do, and Harry didn't even need to be petrified, a simple "SSssh" gesture stopped him from crying out or trying to stop anything from happening.

Also:

• We don't understand the attack on the Weasley house at all, other than to say "We're bad-ass Mofos", and I'm glad that they didn't catch Harry in all that long grass - it's a good thing they were all running around on the ground and not flying over the top - they might have seen him then. :rolleyes:

• Is it just us, or does the exterior of Weazleys Wizard Wheezes look like a cross between Archie's Funhouse and Downtown Disney?

When Harry shoves the Bezoar down Rons throat, the people who had only seen the movie wouldn't have a clue as to what it is, or why it works, and where Harry knew of it. It could have been an antacid tablet for all they knew.

I thought they gave Ginny short shrift. She had a lot of business in the book, but here she just came off as the girl destined to be the hero's solemn girlfriend.

I thought Dumbledore's dispatch was played too cooly. In the book, it seemed like Dumbledore was a battered old man begging for his life. Now, arguably, in light of what we learned in book seven, perhaps it could be said he was begging for death, but it still had too much of a "Severus, remember what we talked about" feel.

I still have no sense of the wizarding universe. Does the fate of the world really turn on whether Voldemort and a dozen or so punk assed death eaters can get the better of some old professors and a bunch of kids?

the scene before going to the whore-crust where Harry heard Snape and Dumbledore talking made it pretty obvious that Snape was a double agent and therefore the assumption would be that Dumbledore is not really dead in the time honored movie tradition of the fake-bad guy fake-killing the good guy before the real-bad guy can do so.

So their expectation is that the next movie will opened with Gandalf back from the flames and purified into having a much nicer looking beard.

That's not what happens - Dumbledore is really dead.

As it turns out, once we get to the next book, Dumbledore never re-appears, so the hints he wasn't dead were really a cheat ... a good one though, since the obvious thing is to hint he's not dead and have him turn up alive because everyone just loves him so darn much.

Interestingly, Seriously Black's death in the prior book was also very indefinite, with the possibility of him coming back to life ... but that never happened either. I don't credit J.K. Rowling for much, but I like these deaths that left people wondering and like it even more that she did not pander to bringing the beloved characters back to life - when technically she could have.

For someone truly dead, Dumbledore has an awful lot to say in Book 7.