Sunteți pe pagina 1din 2

HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE – REVIEW

9 out of 10
It’ll come as no surprise to the legion of Harry Potter fans that the sixth entry in
the popular franchise, The Half-Blood Prince, is a wonderful film. After watching
all 6 films of the series over the last 6 days, I believe it is time to declare that Harry
Potteris the best film franchise in cinematic history. Believe me I don’t make the
above statement lightly, I’m a huge fan of the original Star Wars trilogy, but SW
has had its share of bad moments over the course of its life, whereas 8 years and 6
films later, the Harry Potter films havenever had one creative misstep. Every time
I watch any of the Potter movies, I think to myself this is the best one in the series
only to disagree as soon as I watch another one. They are all fabulous movies
based on source material that is out of this world and there is no reason to believe
that the final films won’t be just as fantastic.

The Half-Blood Princeis less action oriented than the previous films and instead
focuses more on character development. Anyone unfamiliar with the books whose
looking for special effects driven extravaganza will most likely be disappointed, but
those who love the books and the characters will absolutely eat up every second of
the movie and come out drooling in anticipation for the last two films of the series.
That’s the thing. Half-Blood Princeis really an appetizer for the main course that
is the final 2 films, but manages to be just as filling at the same time.

The story revolves around Dumbledore (a terrific as always Michael Gambon)


teaching Harry about series baddie, Voldemort’s, past and what they will need to do
to stop his current reign of terror. Not much light is shed on what makes Voldemort
aka Tom Riddle such an evil SOB (the book of course, goes into much further detail),
instead it is insinuated that he is just a bad seed. Through the use of some
extremely dark magic, Voldemort has split his soul in to seven pieces and hidden
them in various objects. If Harry and Dumbledore are unable to locate all of these
items (called horcruxes)and destroy them, it will be impossible to kill you know who.
It is this story that may frustrate the non readers in the audience as there is no
resolution here. It isn’t until the final novel, The Deathly Hollows(movies 7 and
8), that this storyline will be fully explored. No worries though because there is
much more going on in Half-Blood Prince than what I mentioned above, including
the central mystery of just who the titular character, the Half-Blood Prince is.
Harry’s school age nemesis, Draco Malfoy is also up to something nefarious and
Potteris desperate to find out what it is. There is also the matter of extracting a
vital memory about Tom Riddle from Hogwartslatest teacher, Horace Slughorn.
Perhaps the biggest challenge that our now 16 year old hero and friends Ron and
Hermione have to face isall the raging hormones running rampant through
Hogwarts. Seriously, it’s almost as if the school of wizardry has moved to a new
90210 zip code. There is quite a bit of snogging going on, especially between the
newly popular Ron and his annoying girlfriend, Lavender.
Director David Yates, back for a second time after directing the last film, Order of
the Phoenix, again does an amazing job of immersing the audience in this magical
world. Yates has crafted a more intimate, personal character driven Potter movie
and it works brilliantly. Once again, screenwriter Steve Kloves does an impressive
job of adapting J.K. Rowling’s novel, ably keeping some of the more crucial elements
of the story. His script is humorous packed with plenty of witty linesthat nicely
balance the dark underscore of the core story. My only complaint is the decision to
excise the epic battle that takes place at Hogwarts at the end of the book although I
understand that the reason was to make the death of a beloved character that
much more dramatic and saddening.

One of the most magical things about the Harry Potterfilms from the very
beginning has been the casting. It is perhaps the greatest casting for a film series
in history and it continues to pay off in dividends. Daniel Radcliffe as Harry
continues to surprise me as he matures in to the role and every time I think he can’t
be any better he is. His confidence as an actor has grown in perfect proportion with
the confidence of the character and in turn his performance is looser and more
thrilling than ever. Rupert Grint as Ron has become a tremendously talented
comedic actor who can create laughs with the tiniest expression. There is one
particular scenewhere Ron is under the influence of a love potion and the look on
Grint’s face is priceless. Emma Watson as Hermione has also grown as an actress
and continues to shine. As Hermione comes to terms with her blossoming affection
for Ron, Watson pulls us in with a touching, heartfelt performance that will move
you to goose bumps.

Among the supporting players, Alan Rickman as the oily Professor Snape has an
expanded role here and is as terrifying as always. He has a way of making even the
most pedestrian lines drip with venom. Michael Gambon as Professor Dumbledore
once again evokes the spirit of the character effortlessly and in my opinion deserves
a Best Supporting nod from the Academy. Jim Broadbent as Horace Slughorn, the
newest teacher at Hogwarts, is terrific. His character burdens a dark secret about
Voldemort and Broadbent allows this to infect his performance to great effect.

To sum it up, The Half-Blood Prince is too complicated to draw in new viewers,
but if you are a fan of the prior installments, you will certainly find yourself
enthralled once again as the series builds a bridge to the final 2 films.

S-ar putea să vă placă și