The half-blood prince

I've been visiting my in-laws, but that's no excuse for not posting, since they FINALLY have internet. (Ah, the 90s, what a marvelous decade.)

We all saw the Harry Potter movie on Friday, and it was most enjoyable. That doesn't stop me from having critical "issues" though:

1) the characters seemed flat and shadowy, merely sketched-out, so much LESS than their personality-driven selves in earlier films;
2) the whole adolescent crush/romance thing reads as a weird distraction. Is this a teen film about romance, or an adventure/magic story? The film doesn't do a good job of integrating both.
3) I missed a compelling, forward-driving goal or narrative impulse here. The story arc isn't much of an arc.
4) The climax (no spoilers here!) is not really played for what it could be, and the film suffers dramatically because of that.
5) Revelation of what the title means seems thrown-off, a bit of exposition just to clear up all the stray bits. In fact, I still don't understand the implications.

Apparently, I never read this particular volume of the series. My SIL says it has a LOT that didn't appear in the film, so perhaps I will read it in August.

August! One small month of summer remains! I must make it COUNT!