Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince

Since I just assume everyone who reads this is someone I know, it is no surprise to anyone that I am not a Harry Potter junkie. I stopped reading the books 65 pages into the first book. I have enjoyed the movies, except for HP5, which was a disaster. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince(Henceforth HP6) had all the set up to be equally disastrous. It has the same director from HP5 and it is rated only PG, which seems weird for a movie that is supposed to be darker. With all of this, I was not terribly excited about the movie. The culture of Harry Potter is interesting and the fan culture, while kind of annoying, intrigues me, so I thought the best way to experience HP6 was with those fans at a midnight show. I will not go into the details of the night, but I will say it did get me in the mood for wizardry.

As the three heroes of HP enter the 6th year at Hogwarts, things have changed for the darker. The halls of the school appear a little emptier and the students all a little more goth-y. Harry, while still all awkward, has a sort of confidence about him and a maturity that comes with seeing death. He travels with Dumbledore to try and recruit a teacher to teach potions. Professor Horace Slughorn(Jim Broadbent) used to teach at the school, and Dumbledore wants him back, for mysterious reasons. Harry has learned to just roll with Dumbledore's crazy requests and is soon Slughorn's favorite student and Harry is awesome at making potions because he found a special copy of the text book, that used to belong to the Half-Blood Prince. Dumbledore has recruited Harry to get a memory out of Slughorn that involves a former student, Tom Riddle because Riddle grew up to be Voldemort. On the more teenage level of the story, Hermione is battling feeling for Ron, who in turn has become involved with a total 1980s valley girl. Harry is also battling feelings for Ron's little sister, Ginny. The main villain arch in this film involves Drako Malfoy being called on by the Dark Lord to carry out a nefarious plot and Snape has joined in an unbreakable oath to watched over Malfoy as he carries out his plan.

The theme of HP6 appears to be "relationships." The friendships, romantic relationships and the relationship between good and evil are examined closely here. One of my favorite moments in the movie is one of the quietest moments with Hermione and Harry sitting on steps consoling each other, like real teenagers. I think moments like those are what make people real fans of these stories. The wizard stuff is cool and the entire world of HP magic is interesting, but it is the remembering that these are teenagers intrigues me most, for some reason. Perhaps the pacing slows down by capturing these intimate moments, but without them, you just have a bunch of wizards shooting electricity at each other, without caring about them. The Dumbledore/Harry relationship is incredibly interesting because it so nicely blends and goes beyond teacher/student, father/son and even friend/friend. The two exist on a totally different plane than anyone else. There scenes together are both funny and serious and there is a warmness there. I liked it. Of course, all good fantasy stories are predicated on the pull between good and evil and HP6 is not without this pull. From Drako Malfoy to Bellatrix Lestrange, the dark forces are very present, even if we never seen Voldemort, except for the young, creepy Tom Riddle.

Whereas HP5 dragged, HP6 moves along at a nice clip, even if it is 153 minutes long. I could do without Quiddich, but I understand it is an important part of the Harry Potter world. It does allow for some nice flying effects, and is the catalyst for Ron's love triangle. HP6 also has a nice look to it from a cinematography stand point. I mentioned the darker Hogwarts halls, but the use of light and shadows is top notch. I loved the shot of Harry's shadow mixed with the back of Hermione when she is hunched over crying. Then there is the absolutely thrilling sequence with Dumbledore and Harry in a giant lake (Gondola and everything!). The way it is shot is gorgeous and haunting with the light cast from the wands providing just enough light, but leaving just a enough darkness to give one purely awesome jump scene. I like how frenetic the scene is for a few seconds and then how fluid it is and how it ends with a really wonderful special effects sequence. In fact, all of the effects are really good here. I love smoke of the death eaters and how the teleportation scene looks with Harry making weird faces. Also, the bridge falling apart looked so good, I wish it had lasted longer.

The complaints I have about this movie are, to a lesser degree, the same problems I had with the last movie. A major character death is not treated with the kind of grandiose respect a major character deserves. In the Harry Potter world imagined by David Yates(Director), major deaths barely seem to register in the moment. Also, I am waiting for a total bad ass wizard fight and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to have that. I am not sure if he is handcuffed by the novels, but wizards should have bad ass wizard fights, yes? The one between Drako and Harry barely registers as a fight and I was left wanting something, anything resembling a wizard fight. These are complaints I have carried over from HP5, but Yates has solved a few of the other problems he had, which maybe means I just did not like HP5 because it wasn't an interesting story. The PG rating did seem to hinder just how dark and awesome the movie could have been, but I was not as distracted by it as I thought I would be.

The 3 main kids have grown into decent actors, with Emma Watson's Hermione getting the most emoting and she handles it the way you would expect a teenager to handle it. Daniel Radcliffe's Harry is getting less and less annoying as the story goes on and I enjoyed his kind of cocky streak in the film. As Ron, Rupert Grint is treated as mostly comic relief and he seems willing to play the part. However, I was not as taken with the comedy as most people were. I think being a fan of the world helps with the comedy because those people know the characters more than I do. I thought some of the comedy worked, but some of it was a bit forced for me, but since everyone else was cracking up, I cannot complain about it too much.

HP6 offers a dark look at the school and the world of magic, but it could have been darker. Yet, I found myself really enjoying the movie as a whole. It held my attention for the entire time and I really liked the focus on relationships and that the movie was not afraid to let relationships blossom and that it gave us quiet teenage moments without running over them for more action. yes, I feel there could have been more action, but the one sequence involving the lake makes up for it. Whoever found some of these locations deserves kudos for finding gorgeously dark spots, especially the use of the Weasley house and the area surrounding it. The acting from the teenagers is almost up to par with the outstanding adults and it is always nice to have Alan Rickman on screen for longer than a few minutes.

I come to Harry Potter with no preconceived notions of how it should look, play or sound. I am prone to getting a little bit lost because the movies are not made for people who are not hardcore fans and I can respect that. There is a language that goes with the world of Harry Potter and I am not fluent in it. I get most of the stuff and I understand most of what is going on, but I am not always 100% sure as to what is going on and who is who. I am okay with that because it makes me pay closer attention. I also want to mention that a girl named Luna is my all time favorite character, not just because she is weird and wears weird things, but because she just accepts everything. She wins for having the best line in which she explains she wears shoes to bed because she sleep walks. She does not say it to be weird, but because it is practical to wear shoes if you sleep walk. LOVE IT!

Final Grade: B