Half-Blood Prince poster
(this review contains spoilers)
I saw last Saturday, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The movie is based on the sixth installment of J. K. Rowling’s highly successful seven book series on the boy wizard Harry Potter. The series starts with Harry the orphaned boy who sleeps inside a cupboard under the stairs of his maternal aunt’s family receiving a visit from Hagrid on his 11th birthday to inform him that his parents were wizards. That his parents were murdered by the evil Lord Voldemort and that he has been accepted to Hogswart to learn magic. At Hogswart, Harry will befriend Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, and the three of them will be going on adventures that will involve thwarting Voldemort’s plan to return to power. Every book is a year’s experience at Hogswart and will also chronicle the three main protagonists, Harry, Ron, Hermione, as they deal with the awkwardness of teenage life. I have seen every movie to date and read all the books and listened to them on books on CD, performed by the excellent voice actor, Jim Dale. The story of Harry Potter actually translate well in every media, whether in its original written form, movie adaptation, and through performance by a voice actor. I tend to consider each medium as a standalone. It is interesting how each medium creates a different enjoyment of the story that is unique from the other mediums. It is like you discover another perspective of the story by listening to it rather than reading or watching it.
Summary (contains massive spoilers)
The film starts with the aftermath of the battle at the Ministry of Magic and the increasing mayhem that the death-eaters are sowing among both the magical and muggle worlds. The headmaster Albus Dumbledore uses Harry to convince a former professor, Horace Slughorn, to return to Hogswart to teach the subject, Potions. Unbeknownst to Harry and Slughorn at that time, is Dumbledore’s reason for asking the later to return to Hogswart. Dumbledore is after the memory of Slughorn’s conversation with the young Tom Riddle, the future Lord Voldemort, which Dumbledore considers as essential in stopping Voldemort. The memory involves Riddle asking how to make hocruxes, a form of dark magic to split one’s soul and hide it in objects and gain immortality. After Dumbledore finds out he asks Harry to accompany him one more time to retrieve one of these hocruxes that lead to the old wizard getting hurt and very weak afterwards.
Meanwhile, the film also revolved around, Slitherin student and arch nemesis of Harry, Draco Malfoy’s being asked by Voldemort to carry out the task of killing Dumbledore and finding a way to breach the security of Hogswart; and also as a consequence of that task, Snape entering into an unbreakable vow with Narcissa Malfoy to protect Draco and carry out the deed if he fails. These two major plots of the movie will later on collide to make for the shocking ending of the film; shocking anyway, to someone who have not read the book or listened to it on an audio book.
Review (no spoilers)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is a decent interpretation of the original Rowling novel. The director, David Yates, was able to capture on film most of the major plot elements of the book. The thing is, there’s just too many things happening in terms of details and character development on any of the Harry Potter books to be able to faithfully capture them all and not stretch the movie to more than 3 hours. I like how Yates, starting with the Order of the Phoenix (the 5th Potter film) and continuing with Half-Blood Prince, used darker tones and hues with the look and feel of the world of Harry Potter to convey the danger and urgency of the story. It also worked for me that he did not dwell on the cutesy and novelty stuff of the books that has been shown on previous films like ghosts floating around, moving staircases, and talking paintings.
On the soundtrack of the movie, Yates and composer Nicholas Hooper recycled the music of The Order of the Phoenix like Fireworks which was used with the Weasley twins in both films and liberally in some of the scenes in Half-Blood Prince. I like it since it created a sense of continuity and I enjoyed Nicholas Hooper’s soundtrack for The Order of the Phoenix.
With regards to the special effects and CGI, I felt that it was just right since it did not create a visual overload which tends to happen in movies of the science fiction or fantasy genre. You are able to concentrate on the development of the story and appreciate the special effects that help bring to life all the magical stuff. Unlike what George Lucas did with Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, wherein the special effects of the opening scene overwhelms and assaults you.
However, what did not work for me, most of the time was the editing of the film. It feels like scenes jump from one plot to another. I also felt that the sub-plot of the three main protagonists’s discovering teenage love and its trials and tribulations kind of slowed the film on some parts. It diminished the sense of danger that the characters are in, but I guess the director is tied to what the author originally wrote in the book. But what to me were glaring flaws of the movie is its failure to put more emphasis on the death-eaters fomenting havoc on both the magical and muggle world, the mystery of who the half-blood prince is, and on the life of the young Tom Riddle. I think I will enjoy more scenes on that than the Ron-ron sub-plot. In the end, the movie is made and geared towards someone who has read the book to fully understand and appreciate the subtle clues of why characters are behaving in a certain way. Overall, I still enjoyed it and would recommend it.