Main Card: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince vs. Twilight

I am not much of a reader. I’ve said this before. When I do read, it is mostly science fiction of a very certain type. And I don’t read much of it. I do, however, watch a ton of movies. In recent years, my movie viewing has waned, but it has lately come back at full-steam.

To give you a better idea about what sorts of things I would be interested in reading, take two really new and famous series, such Harry Potter and Twilight, and go to the exact opposite end of the spectrum.

I’ve neither read, nor had any desire to read, either of JK Rowling’s famous Harry Potter series or Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series. Nor will I ever. EVER.

But, I will watch the movies.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

This unique series of films makes it very difficult not to appreciate. The time, care, and dedication that is evident in each feature is simply amazing. The Lord of the Rings series is astounding for so successfully translating complex text into a feature movie mini-series. It is truly one of a kind. But the Potter series has done the same thing…except the Potter folks have completed three more films. And each one is just as good as the previous.

The Half-Blood Prince is no exception. It is certainly a function of age and demographic that the material is increasingly appealing to me. Yet it is also a testment to production and writing that this is the desired effect.

The stories are told from Harry’s (Daniel Radcliffe) point of view. Each film has mirrored that point of view and progressed and changed its narrative style accordingly. Quite impressive.

I would have definitely given the film more marks were it something more congruent with my tastes. It’s not unfortunately. But this is one of those rare times where something can be great, amazing, and historical…and yet, just not for me, necessarily. That may change by the end of the series though.

Twilight

When I first saw the trailer for this movie, the thought that popped into my head was: “this looks like it has the production quality and appeal of a Lifetime movie.”

Don’t misjudge, if you like Lifetime movies, or even Hallmark movies, that’s fine. They serve a purpose, and I’m okay with that. But the production quality of a multi-million dollar feature ought to be lightyears ahead of cable television.

That the story quality isn’t…well…no amount of money can change that. Having said that, the movie isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. The major drawbacks lie in some of the directorial decisions. Missed the mark a bit. It is no surprise to me that the director was replaced. Whatever.

Not all of it is the director’s fault. Some things just don’t transfer well to the screen. There is one scene, for instance, where the family of vampires play baseball. Yes, vampire baseball. More than just being a stupid moment, it grates on my skin. A big pet peeve of mine is when actors, who are very obviously not athletes, have to be so for a role. None of them are and nobody did anything to help fake it.

There are two rules, that I have arbitralily assigned to casting directors, when selecting an actor for an athletic role.

1)Select an athlete or an actor who has experience actually playing the sport.

Kevin Costner is a good example. In Bull Durham, Field of Dreams, and For the Love of the Game, it is evident that Costner has actually played baseball before, and done so fairly well. Sometimes athletes can pull off an acting role. But the circumstances have to be just right. Ray Allen does a solid job in He Got Game. Shaquille O’Neal, Penny Hardaway, and others do well in Blue Chips.

Wesley Snipes is very athletic, but I’m not sure if he’s played baseball before. Regardless, his natural athleticism allowed him to fake it pretty well in Major League. Actors train all the time for martial arts roles and develop pretty damn good proficiencies too. Why not for sports?

2)If you can’t get an actor who has experience in the sport, or you can’t get an athlete, per se, get a great actor!

Tim Robbins is not an athlete, but he is spectacular in Bull Durham. Part of it is that since he is not comfortable with the fundamentals, he glosses over them through exaggeration. Now, at the same time, it is obvious that he spent some time on mechanics. But great actors do that.

Keanu Reeves is convincing enough in The Replacements. Kurt Russell is not when playing basketball in Escape from New York. Which is funny since he played minor league baseball (no small feat).

If you cannot guarantee that these rules will be abided, move on.

Okay, another thing that didn’t transfer well to the screen is the scene where Bella (Kristen Stewart) walks into the science class and sits next to Edward (Robert Pattinson). In the book, I hear, it is a tense scene for Edward because he so strongly desires Bella’s blood. So much so that he is contemplating ways in which to kill the entire class just to get to it. Okay, I can see how this can play out in a novel. In the movie, however, Bella walks in the room, passes a fan, which shows us that her scent is wafted towards Edward, and he…looks ill. Worse than that, it looks like he has a sudden diarrhea attack. He runs out of the room quickly and straight into a bathroom, I assume. It’s so awkward and so awful that it completely detracts from the whole movie. There are other moments of awkwardness, but you get the idea.

Aside from fits of intestinal rage, the sheer direction of the story is disappointing. Since there is no real conflict in the movie, they invent it.

Towards the very latter part of the film, some rogue vampires crash the ol’ ball game (the family is pretending to play) and one of them wants to hunt Bella. Edward can’t let that happen and yada yada yada, there’s a dead vampire at the end.

It would have been much more compelling to me had they continued exploring the relationship of the two main characters. The parts in which they do so are indeed the best moments of the movie.

Overall, I was not impressed. My expectations were low, so they were easily exceeded. That’s not to say that I don’t understand the appeal, but even though it wasn’t for me, there were significant points of improvement that could have been made.

Because of this, Harry Potter successfully defends against the dark arts once again and retains the championship belt.

It really never was fair fight.