Movie Review - Harry Potter Half-Blood Prince
Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint in Warner Bros. Film
Jul 16, 2009
Is it possible for a movie franchise to improve as it goes along?
Warner Bros.' Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince gives the lie to conventional wisdom: any sequel after the 3rd film (Star Wars, Shrek) automatically takes the A Train to Suckville. Based on the gajillion-selling children's book by J.K. Rowling, the sixth Harry Potter movie is darker and more intense than previous installments.
David Yates Directs Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Alan Rickman
It is a time of war in the wizarding world. The Death Eaters, led by Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes), are terrorizing wizards and muggles alike, and not even the Hogwarts School of Magic is safe. Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) not only struggles with facing his destiny to take on Voldemort, but wrestles with his growing feelings for Ginny Weasley (Bonnie Wright), his best friend's little sister.
Albus Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) gives Harry private tutorials, taking him through memories of Lord Voldemort's childhood to discover what the former Tom Riddle is planning. Dumbledore has another task for Harry: somehow extract an important memory from the new Potions Master, the name-dropping yet guilt-ridden Horace Slughorn (Jim Broadbent).
Add raging teenage hormones, a mysterious textbook filled with dark spells, love potions, and a suddenly secretive Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton), and you have a year that will alter Hogwarts, and Harry Potter's world, forever.
The cast, made up of the cream of British acting talent, is uniformly good, but kudos go to Michael Gambon as Dumbledore. After taking over for the late Richard Harris in The Prisoner of Azkaban, Gambon has truly made the character completely his own. The three leads – Radcliffe, Emma Watson (Hermione Granger) and Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley) – have also grown into their roles, balancing drama and comedy with equal measure. Special mention to Radcliffe, who more than holds his own in his many scenes with Gambon.
Director David Yates took a lot of design and colour elements from Alphonso Cuarón's Prisoner of Azkaban. The colours in Half-Blood Prince are darker and more desaturated, giving the film a desolate look. Longtime adaptor Steve Kloves pared Rowling's 652-page tome into a 153-minute film without losing a large part of Half-Blood Prince's essence.
However, the biggest problem with this film is one that's common to any adaptation of a book series: how do you give enough time to Rowling's cast of thousands, and their interlocking story arcs? Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane), Peter Pettigrew (Timothy Spall), Tonks (Natalia Tena) and Neville Longbottom (Matthew Lewis) are reduced to walk-on roles, dropped in for fan-service and little more.
On the other hand, Bellatrix Lestrange (Helena Bonham Carter) and werewolf Fenrir Greyback (Dave Legeno) get more on-screen time than they perhaps deserve.
In addition, a lot of Voldemort's motivation is removed from the film, mainly for reasons of space. It doesn't hurt the storyline, but the set-up for the next installment, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, isn't as strong as it could have been.
The Final Analysis
With the Harry Potter franchise, Warner Bros. has managed to craft a movie series that hasn't jumped the shark after the 3rd flick. It gets an 8/10.
 |
