HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE – Reviewed by Will

When the eminent Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron was brought on to direct the third (and still best) Harry Potter movie, The Prisoner of Azkaban, he proved that the franchise would be strongest when it  departed from a rote retelling of J.K. Rowling‘s books and charted its own identity and style. As the books progressed, each installment became darker and more sprawling, while the films have become darker and–necessarily–more focused. As four different directors have come and gone, screenwriter Steve Kloves, who has written all but one of the six (soon to be eight) films in the series, has learned to be daring when he cuts beloved characters and entire subplots from his adaptations. But after 10 years, he’s let the Wizarding World seep into his pores, and sometimes he creates moments and images that, while absent from Rowling’s text, have a startling magic of their own. With the sixth film, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, he and returning director David Yates (The Girl in the Cafe) have a new advantage. While the previous five films were created without a complete picture of the road ahead, this one was produced after the last book in the series was released, and with the final destination finally in clear view, the filmmakers know exactly where they can afford to take fun little detours. Yates has a surer hand this time around–while The Order of the Phoenix had issues with editing and pacing, this one flows much more smoothly and comfortably.

Indeed, the tone is rather lighter this time around. While the underground wizard society is now in open warfare against the resurrected Lord Voldemort, Hogwarts School and its students are ensconced in a shaky bubble of enchantment cast by its headmaster, Albus Dumbledore. This protective shield manifests itself onscreen like a giant invisible bug zapper, keeping Voldemort’s minions–and stray insects–out. It is within this sheltering bulwark that the majority of the Half-Blood Prince unfolds. Much of the film plays like a romantic comedy of errors, ripe with teenage love and angst, particularly between Ron and Hermione but also Harry and Ron’s younger sister Ginny. At the same time, Dumbledore shares secrets about Voldemort’s past with Harry, secrets that will prove essential to his inevitable confrontation with the Dark Lord. Meanwhile, his old nemesis Draco Malfoy is up to something, something which just might puncture the bubble. Back when the book was first released in 2005, I suspected that its most significant new character, Professor Horace Slughorn, might eventually be played by the inestimable Jim Broadbent, but Broadbent’s Slughorn is somewhat different from what I imagined. This is no complaint, as this interpretation folds more easily into the compressed narrative Yates is spinning here. Slughorn’s Potions class (Snape is now the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, though this is barely mentioned) is the setting for what seems initially to be an amusing subplot–Harry has come into possession of a heavily annotated old textbook belonging to the titular “Half-Blood Prince,” whose identity is revealed late in the film.

The returning cast, old and decreasingly young alike, are all predictably great. Daniel Radcliffe has done several non-Potter projects by now, and his acting has improved dramatically since we first met him in The Philosopher’s (or Sorcerer’s) Stone. I still miss Richard Harris‘ Dumbledore, but Michael Gambon is quite good this time around. The special effects and music lend a nice atmosphere without becoming too conspicuous. In fact, the loveliest bit of magic in the film is never even seen, only described. And it wasn’t even in the book! – [DVD] [Blu-Ray]

Action/Adventure/Family/Fantasy

Rated PG

DVD Release Date: 12/08/09