Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince - How Hollyoaks does it better

I'm not sure how you could not know the plot by now, but spoilers for anything Potter

I like Harry Potter films, there is something cosy and Sunday afternoonish about them and I always get a little tingle in my spine when that melody kicks in. I even just about forgive the atrocity that was film 2, mostly because it taught all future directors and writers that they were going to have to slice and dice the books to make a decent film. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince sees Harry and friends return for another year of education, adolescent development and fighting Lord Voldemort. Film 6 is as much about the raging hormones as it is about the raging battle between good and evil outside the school walls. Large amounts of film time are dedicated to the teen-angst relationships between the teenage heroes. The problem is the actors aren't very good at portraying it. Ginny in particular drove me mad with her very strange motherly seduction techniques. Shoelace tying only works with naughty smile when kneeling down and mince pie feeding is sort of sexy if you don't precede it with a matronly 'open up'. Poor Ginny managed to exude fewer (admittedly adolescently incompetent) 'come hither' messages in the entire film than the waitress sweetly managed in 2 minutes. Quiditch and Ron's relationship with Lavender (wonderfully hammed up) is all well and good, but mentioning that people are dying and disappearing outside the walls might also have been relevant.

The relationship between Harry and Ginny was eventually OKed by Ron via Hermione as an afterthought during the Empire-Strikes-Back-window framing final scene. Why go to all that painful effort for one throw-away sentence? That among with a few other strange cuts, such as the hourglass and the burning newspaper has led me to believe that several parts of the film that were shot were edited out. Sections of the book were also cut, the Tonks subplot, the Ministry politicking, Bill Weasley and the Dursleys plus all the staring into the swirly memory bowl has thankfully been minimised. References to previous books were present without further painful exposition (Aragog, the marauder's map, Harry's parents). But two points were strangely absent: Sirius, (something of an important figure to Harry) was barely mentioned or grieved for and the fight in the castle was completely missing, having been mostly transferred to the Weasley home. The last I found to be the most confusing; it seemed that Draco had been filling his time (and a portion of the film) with his efforts around the cabinets, so that the deatheaters could arrive and provide...moral support?

Film 6 is the set up for book 7 (films 7+8 if you will) and it truly felt darker and more epic. The young cast look and act like nearly-adults (although hilariously Neville looks about 30) ready to unsteadily face the world. Broadbent's Slughorn worked perfectly and Draco's change from snide bully to a far more dangerous,clever and scared foe was well handled. So the younger actors are erratic and they could learn something about portraying teen relationships from the cast of Hollyoaks. But the cast of Hollyoaks isn't sharing a screen with the pitch perfect royalty of British acting, where nearly anyone is going to look weak. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince is a solid lead into the final book, lets hope the actors practice their goo-goo eyes and body language before it starts filming.