Perhaps befitting a series that's seen a hormonal jolt added to its latest installment, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is causing film critics to wax rhapsodic...about what a hottie Emma Watson has turned into. Sure, there were signs of this bubbling up two years ago upon the release of Order of the Phoenix, but now she's 19! With critical tumescence having reached a fevered pitch, we thought it time to take a look at three of the most notable types of Watson crushes in print (we're not even dealing with the fanboy sites, because who knows what poor, sexy Hermione comes in for there).
Keeping It Profesh
Todd McCarthy, Variety: "Emma Watson, perennially appealing as Hermione, has become a very attractive young woman."
Analysis: OK, that's fair -- McCarthy includes this summation in an analysis of the child actors' physical changes. Still, only Watson and Bonnie Wright ("the sort of initial plain Jane who keeps growing on you") have their transformations run through a lens of sexual attraction. Why did Daniel Radcliffe escape such scrutiny? I demand to know what McCarthy thinks of short men.
Taking it To a Weird Place
David Edelstein, New York: "Emma Watson's Hermione has turned out disappointingly. It's not Watson's fault she grew up so pretty, so poised, with such luscious tresses."
Analysis: Nor is it Edelstein's fault that such an observation reads like Of Mice and Men's Lennie was trying to describe an Herbal Essences commercial.
Flat-Out Admitting It
Tom Long, Detroit News: "Ron himself is now the secret object of affection for gal pal Hermione (Emma Watson), although he soon has a clingy girlfriend who mucks things up. All of this is a bit problematic in the film since -- she's 19 now and it's OK to say it -- Emma Watson is somewhat majorly hot, and neither Ron nor his girlfriend come close. Oh, well, how could the casting directors have known all those years ago?"
Analysis: Watson was actually 17 when she shot most of Half-Blood Prince. Sorry, Tom Long, you have stumbled into the most elaborate and unfair Dateline NBC sting ever.
Anyway, fun! I can't wait for a few years from now, when reviews of Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Hoped-For Fifth Installment will grind to a halt for paragraph-long dissertations on how bangable Logan Lerman has become. Haha that will never happen, he's a dude.