Last night, Tuesday, July 14th, we arrived at a crowded, under-heated movie theater dressed fully in robes and such, to watch the [delayed] midnight showing of a movie known as Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The movie, though better than previous movies (i.e., movies NOT directed by Christopher Columbus), had many horrible flaws that were disgraceful to the Harry Potter community.

Flaw 1: The plot-line was seriously mangled, shredded and burned. By this we mean that, basically, there was no plot. The lack of a plot deeply saddened us, and made other moviegoers confused as to what was happening over the course of the movie. Our friend who had never read the books continually asked what was happening throughout the entire film. Also, another friend, who had read the books (though not multiple times), did not fully understand the plot-line of the movie.

Flaw 2: Throughout this movie, piles of humor were added. Every single scene had at least one funny comment or action which resulted in laughs from the audience. The humor wasn't stupid humor, and thankfully it was genuinely amusing. But despite the fact that the humor lightened the movie, and gathered laughs, it distracted the audience from the plot-line, and therefore also made the movie stray from the main plot. Additionally, at some points, the humor went too far, and made scenes that were supposed to be deep and emotional turn humorous and laughable.

Flaw 3: This movie had taken out many key parts of the book to add in things irrelevant to the plot-line. *SPOILER ALERT* At the end, they completely took out the epic battle scene. The Death Eaters had no purpose there whatsoever. They came, stood there for a moment to watch Snape kill Dumbledore, and left. The reason there was no epic battle is because the movie was already too long. BUT, if they had STUCK TO THE BOOK, they would have had time. They put in a scene where they were all at the Burrow. Ginny slowly bent down to tie Harry's shoelace. She stood up, and they were about to kiss, when Death Eaters suddenly attack. This scene consisted of Death Eaters turning into flying black smoke, and Harry running through a field of wheat. It was completely pointless and had no purpose at all. They had taken out most of the memories to put in God knows what else.

Flaw 4: Though romance was large part of the book, and definitely added something different and special to this installment of the Harry Potter series, the romance in the movie played a bit too large a part. Though sometimes things like that have to be a little exaggerated in movies to get it across to the audience, the romance and love in this movie went way beyond exaggeration to the point where it was almost all the movie contained. Also, unfortunately, many romance scenes were stupid, and felt unrealistic, not due to bad acting or bad chemistry, but rather a bad script or bad direction. Though the scenes between Ron and Lavender were amusing, did we really need to see all of them? Couldn't they have put in more scenes that would develop the plot, rather than Ron and Lavender's relationship? But, all in all, the scenes between Ron and Lavender were rather good and added humor to the movie. However, the scenes between Harry and Ginny were mostly stupid and weren't very believable. *SPOILER ALERT* Several examples of stupid romance between them was when Ginny stuffed a cupcake (or some dessert) into Harry's mouth (or rather, fed it to him), and when she bent down to tie his shoelace. Also, the kiss that was supposed to be practically life-changing and magical was a tiny peck on the lips. Bonnie Wright and Daniel Radcliffe had the potential to work well together, but rather the bad script made it look comical and stupid.

Flaw 5: Out of character-ness. Harry was very out of character at times in the movie. For example, Hermione tells him that people only like him because he's the Chosen One, and he replies, "But I AM the Chosen One," Harry would never say that. At least Dumbledore wasn't violent in this movie like he was in the fourth (when Harry's name came out of the goblet and he pinned him against the wall and started yelling at him).

Flaw 6: To put it simply, molestation. Well, this one may not sound as serious a flaw (and isn't as serious a flaw) as the other flaws we have mentioned. It didn't play a large fault in the movie, and was barely noticeable, but as we tended to look at the movie carefully, we have noticed it. Many characters (Dumbledore, Ron, and Ginny) seemed to be touching Harry and moving close to Harry throughout the movie in ways that would be uncomfortable to many. But, as we said, it's not a huge deal.

Though this movie had many cons, it also had many pros as well.

Pro 1: The acting was perfectly done. If the script had been better, it would have been a good movie. Unlike Kristen Stewart in Twilight, these actors could actually show emotion while on screen. The cast was perfect, as well. There is no better person for Harry, or Ron and Hermione, Snape, and pretty much everyone. The only actor that could have been better was Michael Gambon (Dumbledore). However, we must admit that Michael Gambon did do much better than he had in previous films (i.e., Goblet of Fire). However, Richard Harris was the perfect Dumbledore. (A moment of silence - moment over.)

Pro 2: The visuals were phenomenal, to put it simply. But that was really no surprise. Every Harry Potter movie has amazing special effects, whether in the sets, the spells they cast on one another, and the make up (ex: blood on their face, deep gashes, etc.). Many scenes had wonderful scenery that perfectly captured their surroundings and the mood. The cave was perfectly creepy, the Hogwarts grounds were perfectly majestic, Hogsmeade was perfectly cozy, and on and on with the "perfectness" of the surroundings. The spells they cast on one another (well, the few spells they cast) were great. Dumbledore's fire spell (though not completely true to the book) was exciting to look at, and was by far one of the most intense moments in the movie mainly due to the great effect of the swirling tornado of fire. The sectumsempra spell Harry cast on Malfoy was also fabulously done.

Pro 3: Okay, we have to admit that some humor was good. Everything Harry did while drunk/high off the Felix Felicius was awesome. "Pincers" for example was strange but funny. So humor was a good thing, but they overdid it.

All in all, it wasn't a great movie, but we know one thing: it was MUCH better than Twilight.