Harry Potter and crew return to Hogwarts for another year of mystery and magic in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Returning to the series is director David Yates (Order of the Phoenix) who brings us darker, yet mildly disappointing sequel to the series. Full of awkward teenage romance, filler plotlines and no sign of “He Who Must Not Be Named,” Half-Blood Prince is a meandering 153-minute film that could have been told in about an hour.
Harry Potter and crew return to Hogwarts for another year of
mystery and magic in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Returning to the series is
director David Yates (Order of the Phoenix) who brings us darker, yet mildly disappointing sequel to
the series. Full of awkward teenage romance, filler plotlines and no sign of
“He Who Must Not Be Named,” Half-Blood Prince is a meandering 153-minute film
that could have been told in about an hour.
The Half-Blood Prince encompasses the sixth year at Hogwarts for Potter (Daniel Radcliffe), Hermione Granger (Emma Watson) and Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint). The film pays even less attention to their schooling than past entries; the bulk of the film revolves around Harry and Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) preparing for the inevitable final battle with Lord Voldemort. Through a series of flashbacks seen through Dumbledore’s pensieve (a kind of looking glass that lets one view memories) Harry learns about Tom Riddle, the boy who would become Voldemort. Desperate to obtain a memory vital to their preparation, Dumbledore and Harry lure retired professor Horace Slughorn (Jim Broadbent) to return to Hogwarts to fill in as a potions teacher. At the same time Harry keeps a close eye on Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton), accusing him of attacking a student in an assassination attempt on Dumbledore.
This film is filled with romance … a lot of romance. It‘s literally half of
the film. Although it never feels forced, the story is transformed into a high
school drama after every major plot development. It’s not that introducing the
relationships in the Potter universe is a bad idea; it’s the fact that they
almost take precedent over the main story.
The plot also wanders quite a bit. The narrative of the film weaves in and out of storylines as if the filmmakers are daring you to put it back together at the end. Many times a scene will end with two people looking at each other and cut to something else without any bridge of explanation to why it went there. It seems that Yates and screenwriter Steve Kloves took what they thought was most important from the book but didn’t bother to tell us why they thought it was important. Half-Blood Prince ends up being a series of snapshots of a great story with nothing to hold them together.
Another thing the film lacks is the ability to stand on its own. This sequel—more than any of them—depends on the viewer to be able to fill in any of the backstory. Even though a high percentage of the audience is very familiar with the story through both the movies and books, the film never takes the time to brief the audience of even recent events that would explain much of the main story. The pacing expects you to be able to put certain plot points together as if the entire series was simply understood. I’m sure most Potter fans won’t see this as a problem, but anyone who is just mildly interested or isn’t familiar with the plot elements may have a hard time understanding what is going on.
All of that said, there are many things done well in this film. The art direction and cinematography, like always, are astoundingly brilliant. Every space feels as realistic and honest as any of the other films in the series. Together Yates and cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel, best known for Amelie and Across the Universe, use the camera to show us just enough without getting in the way of the story with flashy camera moves or unnecessary special effects. As the characters have grown up, their surroundings have aged as well. No longer is the school teeming with wonder and imagination. The halls are mostly quiet and eerily haunting when class is in session. The paintings, normally alive with some comedic third-string characters, are nowhere to be seen. Yates’ grown-up vision of the ever-maturing Harry Potter universe is a welcome addition that I hope will continue with the final two films.
Ultimately, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is a film without much to get behind. It’s not a boring story and the acting is top notch, but it’s just that most of the story didn’t feel like it needed to be told. With the two-part series finale slated for a 2010-2011 release, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is more of a two-and-a-half-hour teaser trailer than a standalone story.
