Magic wand in hand, Peter Travers takes on Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince in this week's At the Movies. Rolling Stone's movie critic is a fan of the sixth film in the Potter series, which again stars Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint. But it's the bad wizards that have captivated Travers: the wondrously sneering Alan Rickman as Snape, whose role is increasing in importance; and Tom Felton as Draco Malfoy, the bully with a crisis of conscience. The film is shot spectacularly, and Travers is hopeful that Potter may knock Transformers 2 out of Number One at the box office and become the summer's most successful movie.
(Click here to watch Tom Felton on the latest episode of "Off the Cuff with Peter Travers")
Also out this weekend (and worth a trip to the theater) is (500) Days of Summer, a romantic film that really works. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a greeting card writer who falls in love with his boss' assistant, Zooey Deschanel, and their break-up is traced over a period of time that comes in spurts — each scene is a random day.
While Tranformers 2 will remain in the Scum Bucket as long as fans continue to flock to the theater to see the blockbuster bomb, it gets some new company in the Bucket this week: the trailer for The Ugly Truth starring Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler. The preview alone reveals a desperate attempt at cuteness. Travers vows to visit the theater to see the flick and review it for real — but be forewarned, this looks like a dog.
Travers wraps this week's video with a letter from a Transformers fan who wrote in proclaiming the robot sequel the best movie of the summer. Travers' response: "I don't regret hating it at all."
Read this week's movie reviews:
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
(500) Days of Summer
In the Loop
>>Watch every episode of our weekly Peter Travers video podcast by subscribing via iTunes (when prompted, click “Launch application”). Every Friday, a new episode will be delivered to your iTunes. [If you don't have iTunes, download it here.]
Share
Email
Stumble
AIM
Del.icio.us
DiggThis
Fark It!
- Portions of Album Content Provided by All Music Guide © 2009 All Media Guide, LLC.
Get RS Mobile
RSS
Clayd0g | August 11, 2009 11:46 AM
Loved 500 Days of Summer. Best romantic comedy I've seen in a while, and I hate them. It took my city a while to get it in theaters but I'm glad I went and saw it instead of Julie and Julia. Thanks for the review, can't wait for District 9.
kirstan | July 23, 2009 11:03 AM
Harry, Hermione and Ron are just gummy bears. I agree that the real food is the dark side in recent Potter films. There just isnt enough Bellatrix, Snape, Voldemort in all his Riddle/Fiennes-ness phases....cannot wait for more evils in the last two...enough of the sap...the strength of Harry Potter mania lies in the utter ruthlessness of the villians...even if Harry has to grab his scar in pain more often. Count me in!
maggielindia | July 20, 2009 9:13 AM
^^^^Cool Guys!!!
Hot cougars and milfs on ==== Agelover. c o m ==== love you guys; and wanna hook up with men just like you!! if you don't mind the so-called age gap, if you really have desires in your hearts, then you rock there!!!
Half Blood Prince = Worst movie in HP series since OotP? | July 19, 2009 1:03 AM
I went to the cinema in the morning hoping to be entertained by another addition to the Potter franchise. Congratulations Yates, you managed to knock Bay out of of the spot for shittiest director of the year. Ever since Yates came to HP with OotP, the franchise was doomed. "The Phoenix" (as I prefer to call the fifth HP movie) sucked. But at least it kept to the storyline at least minorly. HBP completely lost it.
First off, as soon as you see the first few minutes of the film with Harry, straight off you know this is going to be simply a HP rip-off from High School Musical. 3/4 of the film are taken up with the teenage hormones, and Yates sacrificed the possibility of introducing some interesting scenes from the novel just to insert a scene with Death Eaters attacking the Burrow and show once more how much Harry and Ginny love each other. I am sickened. Alas, Yates doesn't even manage to maintain the love correctly. Ginny appears to start fancying Harry out of nowhere just ten minutes after Yates introduces a scene with Ginny kissing Dean Thomas. Where's the scene with the fight at Hogwarts? Nowhere, the answer is. The Horcrux cave encounter is completely un-epic and Hagrid, one of the most dynamic characters in the HP universe is left out completely except for a few camera shots. The whole movie is taken up with "Won-Won's" and "He-mo-nee's" and their stupid love and little place is actually left for the development of the film. It seems though that Yates had some brain left to keep Snape and Malfoy characters untouched and left them more or less how they are supposed to be. The Quidditch scenes made me laugh. No Harry or anything like the first and second movies for the matter - entire movie taken up with Ron and his spectacular saves, and Lavender Brown making eyes at him with Hermione fuming in the background and McLaggen doing the "come with me to bed after this, honey?" face to Hermione. Seriously where is the thrill of it all? Yates seriously fucked up and anyone who says this movie beats previous HP movies is got a problem judging films. Where is the exciting adventurous thril of previous movies? It's gone, Yates replaced it all with teenage love. Somebody should fire Yates and even if they don't it's not like the seventh and eigth HP movies could get any better. Rowling already screwed up with them anyway.
I am not surprised you like this Travers, considering your review is coming from someone who nominates "Dead Man's Chest" for top 5 worst movies, when in fact it was the swashbuckling highlight of the year. And I am not surprised HBP is coming up top. Shit has a tendency to rise to the top after the whole bottom is through with it't stink.
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince rating: 1.5/10. A few of the darker moments were alright, but I'd rather watch Dead Man's Chest than endure anoher five minutes of the Half Blood Prince.
Kevin the Robot | July 17, 2009 1:55 PM
When you give your review of the Ugly truth next week, you should do your best Spartan impression and say, "THIS...IS... TERRIBLE!!!
Megabomb | July 17, 2009 7:37 AM
Peter Travers FTW!!!Go Suck It Transformers Fans!
hdbngr63 | July 17, 2009 12:27 AM
Kudos, any critic that openly says "suck it" to idiotic "Transformers 2" fan is good in my book.
"Half-Blood Prince" was really good, the point in the series where it's starting to get dark (meaning good). Damn "500 Days of Summer" for being in stupid limited release. Want to see it, but it's playing NOWHERE in Oregon.