Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (2009) starring Daniel Radcliffe, Michael Gambon, Jim Broadbent, Alan Rickman, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint.

Before...I was thoroughly looking forward to this film. The fact that I had to organise to go and see it with one of my fiancée's best friends as my fiancee wouldn't touch it with a barge pole made it all the more amusing. The reviews had not been kind but I still looked forward to it, mainly because the key grumbles about the film are the acting and that winds me up something rotten!! Anyway, I'll get onto that later.

In the sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft, and in both wizard and muggle worlds Lord Volemort and his henchmen are increasingly active. With vacancies to fill at Hogwarts, Professor Dumbledore (Gambon) persuades Horace Slughorn (Broadbent), back from retirement to become the potions teacher, while Professor Snape (Rickman) receives long awaited news that he is the new Defence against the Dark Arts teacher. Harry Potter (Radcliffe), together with Dumbledore, must face treacherous tasks to defeat his evil nemesis. Ron (Grint) and Hermione (Watson), as ever, are there by Harry's side to help him when needed.

Where to start...the main issue I have with the film is the plot. It is unfortunate that the script writers have simply only taken the essence of the book into the film. There are some key plot holes that are present, which means that only people who have read the book will understand what is going on. This is a real bizarre decision in my view, I know for a fact that there are some people out there who haven't read the books because "I'm not a book sort of person", and so their only knowledge of the Harry Potter world is through the films, and because of that they lose some of the vital plot details that are present within the books, eg what exactly a Horcrux is! There is little new exposition, and they even leave a key section of the book out from the film, presumably they will put it in at the start of the next movie.

My earlier comment about the acting in my "before" section is present because time and time again it is the acting of the younger cast that is condemned by reviewers and my retort to that is...what do you expect? The casting people chose the younger cast nearly 10 years ago now, and they choose children who maybe looked the part and enjoyed acting. So condemning the actors for their lack of believability is ridiculous in my view. Take them for what they are, 3 children who got lucky being chosen for one of the biggest film franchises in the world. Yes they aren't the best actors in the world but then again few child actors come out good do they...see AI for my comments about Haley Joel Osment. The acting overall I think is good, the younger cast are ok and the elder actors are fantastic as always.

The use of CGI in the film is excellent, as it is with all of the series so far. Especially the opening destruction of the Millenium bridge. I really liked how they used the first person perspective flying through the city...I am told that in 3D it looked stunning. Also one of the final sequences in the film, the scene in the cave, is brilliant. All in all though, it seems that they simply have used this film as a stepping stone in preparation for the next movie.

Overall, I was stunned by the spectacle of the film and excited by what is to come in the next films. The darkness was at the right level and because of the amount of darkness it never should have been given the 12A certificate that it got. I look forward to the next films, though at the same time, I am nervous that they too will be given 12A certificates and therefore will lose the sufficient darkness that they should have. Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed this film, even though the plot goes haywire at some points, and for that reason I am going to give this film...

★★★★☆