Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince

Throughout this decade that only some refer to as the ‘noughties’ we have watch the hugely popular Harry Potter film series grow and mature along with the films young cast themselves. Now here we have the 6th and penultimate film (not taking into account that the 7th book shall be two films) and it seems like things have come a long way.

That’s right, it seems like hardly any time ago that we watched an 11 year old Harry first walk through the gates of Hogwarts and now here we are at the final stretch of the saga and walking into considerable darker territory, a tale of murder and betrayal one would not necessarily associate with a franchise were the fan base are predominantly children (or adults who grew up with the franchise).

Rest assured when I say this is the most adult of all the Potter films I really mean it. There is a sense of constant threat that runs through the film where as a viewer you get the sense that the wizarding world has truly hit hard time. This is largely thanks to David Yates confident and dynamic direction where he creates a wholly immersive world where our lead characters can operate in.

The acting here is also the best in the series so far. The lead trio have amazing chemistry as well as some of the supporting child cast. Alan Rickman, Michael Gambon and Jim Broadbent as professor Horace Slughorn also have plenty to work with. Best of all however is that Draco Malfoy has been given an expanded role, especially good considering for the past two films Malfoy has done next to nothing. Also good to see is how he has drastically changed as a character, he has become more conflicted under the pressure of his task in hand whereas in the earlier films he was the typical school bully/spoilt brat.

One thing that came to my attention when watching this film however was that it was somewhat of a statement of substance abuse, which is a common theme one might associate with youths. There are numerous example of this e.g when Harry finds the potions book belonging to the half blood prince he keeps using it to enhance his performance in class even if it does end up causing him to ultimately go overboard. This is a strong reflection on people who use performance enhancing steroids. Another scene has him taking a good luck potion and then acting ‘high’ for the next ten or so minutes of the film. Other scenes include Ron Weasley foaming at the moth after taking a lethal combination of potions and Dumbledore being forced to drink an entire basin of lethal fluid.

This brings me to the climax of the film, skip this paragraph to avoid spoiler. The death of Dumbledore is mostly handled well. The scene that stood out for me was where his corpse is lying on the grounds of Hogwarts and the students and staff are all crowded around him raising their wands out of respect. The only issue I had was that the betrayal of Snape is so undercooked. In the book the betrayal aspect is treated as a major incident. Unfortunately here it is assumed everyone has read the book and there is no need to re-establish it for those who haven’t.

Overall I feel that the makers of the Potter film franchise have delivered another decent blockbuster. One that fall only slightly short of The Prisoner Of Azkaban and The Goblet Of Fire. All I can say now is Bring On The Deathly Hallows.

4 STARS