Review: Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (2009)

[Jonathan Moya]

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
 (2009)

A Movie Review
By
Jonathan Moya
3 Out of 5 Stars or B

The Plot: (from MRQE.com)

Voldemort is tightening his grip on both the Muggle and wizarding
worlds and Hogwarts is no longer the safe haven it once was. Harry
suspects that dangers may even lie within the castle, but Dumbledore
is more intent upon preparing him for the final battle that he knows
is fast approaching. Together they work to find the key to unlock
Voldemort's defenses and, to this end, Dumbledore recruits his old
friend and colleague, the well-connected and unsuspecting bon vivant
Professor Horace Slughorn, whom he believes holds crucial information.
Meanwhile, the students are under attack from a very different
adversary as teenage hormones rage across the ramparts. Harry finds
himself more and more drawn to Ginny, but so is Dean Thomas. And
Lavender Brown has decided that Ron is the one for her, only she
hadn't counted on Romilda Vane's chocolates! And then there's
Hermione, simmering with jealousy but determined not to show her
feelings. As romance blossoms, one student remains aloof. He is
determined to make his mark, albeit a dark one. Love is in the air,
but tragedy lies ahead and Hogwarts may never be the same again.

The Review:

Having a muggle only appreciation for the Harry Potter franchise, (I
have only read Deathly Hallows) it is easy to come to each new
incantation with a level set of eyes.    They need to work as film and
film only. That is why the first two installments bored me--they were
respectful and lifeless, the classic comics version, made for the
fans.

The third and the last one were the only ones that worked by themselves
--and those were the ones who departed in some way from the canon.
The Order of the Phoenix managed to wrap up all the agony of teenage
angst (the anger, the alienation, the rebellion against authority, the
confusion) into the conventions of a political thriller.  Peter Yates
direction and Michael Goldenberg's screenplay (filling in for resident
Potter scribe Steve Kloves) made the hormonal rush of adolescence fit
in with the unfinished serial roughness required of the Potter world.
Stuck between childhood and looming adulthood, it was rightly awkward,
a work in progress like all the teen years are.  Alfonso Cuarón
(Children of Men) helmed the third installment, The Prisoner of
Azkaban, the most majestic and honestly emotional of the Potters.
Azkaban had an artistry based on a true understanding of children and
film craft (Y tu Mama Tambien, Great Expectations, A Little Princess),
the perfect magical-realist edge.  The Potter kingdom was his-- had he
wanted it.

Half Blood Prince snogs around the descending blackness, trying to be
a romance in the dark for about half its running time--at least, until
the noir and adult stuff kicks in.    The kids are starting to feel
their oats and the ensuing bliss and jealousies.  Ron (Rupert Grint)
and Hermione (Emma Watson) are rivals in a chaste triangle that
involves Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) and Ron's sister Ginny (Bonnie
Wright).  Love is treated as an oddity, a potion gone awry, something
not real.  There is little emotional depth to the couplings and
entanglements.  It is just fluff.  Cuarón would have found the edge to
make it more mature. Yates cannot find the parallel in all the snoging
to give it a serious side, a socio-political consciousness.   He sees
only the candy heart.

The politic is for the adults and Harry-- and it involves the death of
a major character.  There is urgency to Dumbledore--a Dumbledore trying
to prepare Harry for the looming battle while still letting him enjoy
the first flush of love.   Michael Gambon, in his best performance in
the series, plays it with the right mixture of fear and courage.  Alan
Richman's slow release word play reflects Snape's ever-shifting
loyalties.  Helena Bonham Carter is all black magic lusciousness as
Bellatrix Lestrange.  Jim Broadbent's guest starring role as Horace
Slughorn, the visiting professor of potions with much needed info on
Voldemort, is pretty much a romp.

Voldemort's story is the dark shadow that blots the soul here, the
inky spots of memory in a beaker of clarity.  Dumbledore sees
separating the truth from the legend, the magic from the man, turning
the immortal lord to mortal muggle as the key to victory.  Harry fate
is to find, confront and destroy the scattered remnants of that
immortality. William Dillane and Hero Fiennes Tiffin (yes, the son of
Ralphe Fiennes of he who plays Voldemort) give the teenage and
childhood Voldemort a suitably bad seed edge. Yates deafly handles the
revelations and the action.   Love may trip him up, but death and
politics he knows intimately.  The movie gets a solid B.

The Credits:   (From AllMovie.com)
David Yates  - Director David Barron  - Producer David Heyman  -
Producer Steve Kloves  - Screenwriter J.K. Rowling  - Book Author
Bruno Delbonnel  - Cinematographer Nicholas Hooper  - Composer (Music
Score) Mark Day  - Editor Stuart Craig  - Production Designer Alastair
Bullock  - Art Director Martin Foley  - Art Director Molly Hughes  -
Art Director Neil Lamont  - Art Director Martin Schadler  - Art
Director Hattie Storey  - Art Director Gary Tomkins  - Art Director
John Trehy  - Co-producer Timothy T. Lewis  - Associate Producer /
Unit Production Manager Lionel Wigram  - Executive Producer Jany
Temime  - Costume Designer Jamie Christopher  - First Assistant
Director Simon Emanuel  - Production Manager Fiona Weir  - Casting Tim
Burke  - Visual Effects Supervisor Nick Dudman  - Creature Effects /
Makeup Special Effects Greg Powell  - Stunts Coordinator John
Richardson  - Special Effects Supervisor

With:   Daniel Radcliffe  - Harry Potter Rupert Grint  - Ron Weasley
Emma Watson  - Hermione Granger Helena Bonham Carter  - Bellatrix
Lestrange Jim Broadbent  - Horace Slughorn Robbie Coltrane  - Rubeus
Hagrid Michael Gambon  - Professor Albus Dumbledore Alan Rickman  -
Professor Severus Snape Bonnie Wright  - Ginny Weasley Maggie Smith  -
Professor Minerva McGonagall Timothy Spall  - Wormtail David Thewlis
- Remus Lupin David Bradley  - Argus Filch Warwick Davis  - Professor
Filius Flitwick Tom Felton  - Draco Malfoy William Melling  - Nigel
Evanna Lynch  - Luna Lovegood Jessie Cave  - Lavender Brown Frank
Dillane  - Tom Riddle (Teenager) Hero Fiennes Tiffin  - Tom Riddle
(Age 11) Natalia Tena  - Nymphadora Tonks Julie Walters  - Molly
Weasley Rob Knox  - Marcus Belby Matthew Lewis  - Neville Longbottom
Helen McCrory  - Narcissa Malfoy Freddie Stroma  - Cormac McLaggen
Alfred Enoch  - Dean Thomas Afshan Azad  - Padma Patil Shefali
Chowdhury  - Parvati Patil Mark Williams  - Arthur Weasley Jamie
Waylett  - Vincent Crabbe Amelda Brown  - Mrs. Cole James Phelps  -
Fred Weasley Oliver Phelps  - George Weasley Katie Leung  - Cho Chang
Georgina Leonidas  - Katie Bell Devon Murray  - Seamus Finnigan
Geraldine Somerville  - Lily Potter Joshua Herdman  - Gregory Goyle
Ralph Ineson  - Amycus Paul Ritter  - Eldred Worple Gemma Jones  -
Madam Pomfrey

Copyright 2009 by Jonathan Moya