Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince **1/2
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is a beautiful and hilarious movie that I desperately wanted to enjoy. Unfortunately, it lingers and plods on awkward teenage relationships, forgetting that it has an adventure to tell. Like the halls of Hogwarts these days, I left feeling empty.
I seem to be alone in my judgment. More than a hundred critics around the country have given Half-Blood Prince has a 90% rating at Rotten Tomatoes, and a B+ average on Yahoo. Were they watching the same movie? Granted, I saw the film at midnight in a packed crowd, and there was a girl behind me who coughed incessantly the whole movie (get a cough drop or leave please), but these external elements do not break a movie for me. Potter 6 just never took off. It meandered on the runway for two hours, spinning its wheels.
Harry is now at his sixth year (of seven) at Hogwarts, which has turned into teenage puppy-love city. All the girls are guy crazy, and all the guys are girl crazy. If only I had a potion I could give to a hot girl that made her instantly fall in love with me. The girls at Hogwarts have no qualms abusing this magic. Harry and Ron don’t need potions though. They’re now the stars of the Quidditch team, and girls come out of the woodwork to see Ron be a goalie—or “Keeper” as they call it in the Wizard world—and watch Harry “seek,” or whatever he does. For the first time enough of an actual Quidditch game is shown that I understand the rules. In previous films, we always ended up just watching Harry chase around that damn Golden Snitch. Here we get a chance to watch real players try to score and actually play Quidditch.
Like I said, hormones are on high. Hermoine likes Ron and Ron’s sister Jenny is into Harry, but the only way anyone communicates is through awkward pauses, vacant stares, and almost kisses. Director David Yates expertly brings the teenage tension to life, and there are some very clever pauses and stares. He also does a terrific job breathing dimension into Draco Malfoy, who is conflicted over a mission he must complete. Draco and Potter used to snicker at each other. This time, shots are fired and people bleed.
Weaved into the teenage tension is the growing relationship between Dumbledore and Harry. The head of Hogwarts asks Harry to help him solve a mystery about Voldemort, who used to be a student at Hogwarts named Tom Riddle. Through extracted memories, we see Voldemort’s troubled childhood and Dumbledore’s first encounter with him. Nearly every scene with Harry and Dumbledore is riveting and well done, save the finale of the film. Michael Gambon plays the wizard to perfection, though I did pick up a lot of interesting vibes between him and Potter. He repeatedly asks Harry about his girlfriends, and even comments that Harry “needs to shave” at one point. I’ll assume I’m looking into it too deeply.
The truth is that there’s a lot to love about this movie. The cinematography is the best the series has seen. Hogwarts has a very isolated and empty aura to it as the threat of Voldemort grows, and the school itself begins to feel like a character. Jim Broadbent, who was great in Hot Fuzz and almost everything he’s been in, is also fantastic as potions Professor Horace Slughorn.
Unfortunately, while David Yates stalls and spins through the teenage drama, he loses focus on what’s truly important to the plot. There is very little action in this Potter film, and when there is, it mostly feels tacked on for the hell of it. In one scene, a group of Death Eaters destroy the Weasley home and harass Potter during Christmas break. What were they trying to accomplish? It felt like a scene inserted solely to speed up the movie and add some fireballs. I’m told it wasn’t even in the book. Half-Blood Prince is an 652 page book: there should be no scenes invented for the movie.
I am a Harry Potter movie purist. I have not read the books, but plan to when I finally see all of the films. I don’t know many details outside of the movies, but the end of this film makes no sense. I can’t imagine the book ends so puzzlingly. I can forgive a lot, but basic questions of logic bother me.
If you’ve seen the last five Potters, you have to see this one—you’re in too deep now. Don’t rush to the theater though. Wait until you can rent it cheaply, or see it for free. Here’s hoping that David Yates and screenwriter Steve Kloves give The Deathly Hallows its due attention and end this series on a higher note.
Score: 2.5 out of 5 - Not Recommended (But you’ll probably see it anyway)
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Small Spoiler Questions
* What do the death eaters want to accomplish? Are they just after Dumbledore? Why do they spend the movie trying to break into Hogwarts if they don’t plan on sticking around?
* Yates makes a point of showing how magic can restore broken house to order, yet everyone is crying when the Weasley house is destroyed. Couldn’t they wave their wands and fix it?