The Harry Potter universe gets decidedly darker with the sixth installment, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The Death Eaters are on the loose causing havoc and death in the muggle world, while Harry and his friends are off for another year of magical lessons at Hogwarts.
Half-Blood Prince finds us learning a lot more about Voldemort’s past, as one Tom Riddle. Harry, with Dumbledore’s help, delves deep into the memories about the Dark Lord, trying to figure out how exactly they’ll be able to defeat him. While Voldemort’s backstory is the most interesting part of the film, much of the film focuses on the teenage hormones running rampant at Hogwarts.
Harry has a crush on Ron’s sister, and Hermione spends her time sulking because Ron has a girlfriend and it’s not her. The kids are maturing that’s for sure, but more time is spent on the relationships at Hogwarts than needs be.
Half-Blood Prince still manages to be the most exciting and enjoyable Potter movie to date, but it’s not without its flaws.
Even though the film clocks in at around 2 ½ hours it still finds itself flying through the subject matter. Important things seem to be happening at lightening speed. People who haven’t read the books may find it hard to keep up.
The beginning and middle of the film are engrossing. The visual style sucks you in, while the character-driven drama and good amounts of humor keep you interested. It isn’t until the final act where things start to falter a bit.
The climax of the film has an air of incompleteness. Having not read the books I was informed that the film leaves out quite a big battle scene contained at the end of the book. I’m not here to say what should and shouldn’t make it into the film, but that type of action is exactly what was missing in the last few minutes of the movie.
Article comments
1 - El Bicho
There's a big battle as well in the final book, and it's likely they didn't want to repeat themselves.
2 - Teresa Schultz
Having seen all 6 Harry Potter movies, I also felt this was the best one, and also agree that the ending is somewhat lacking as a good climax - but certainly also feel it definitely makes me terribly keen to see the 7th, and don't remember feeling like that when finished watching the previous 5.
My 11 year old son read all the books before he turned 10, and he and his younger brother thoroughly enjoyed it yesterday too. He even wrote a movie review from an 11 year old's perspective, on my blog.
3 - tink
The ending in the book definitely holds high emotion and climax, it will be interesting to see how it's handled in the movie.
Thanks for your insight...it did just what it was supposed to do...make me more eager to see the fim. And I didn't think that was possible.
BTW, now I'm going to check out Teresa's blog so that I can read what her boy has to say about it.
4 - Me
I saw the movie and thought it was good but i have not read the books so of course i can not compare.
I think people liked this one so much because of the romance and plus they cant remember wut they thought of the othermovies. I know i cant1
GO READ TWILIGHT!!!
5 - me2
worst movie by far, i dont even want to watch the last two movies now