Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: Review

  The most surprising thing I’ve learned today is that Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince has a running time of 153 minutes, according to the fine folk at the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com), and I’ve no reason to disbelieve them. Apart from the fact that it felt considerably less.

  That’s one of the good things about the new film, the sixth in the immensely popular series – despite the fact that the book is thick enough to kill a man stone dead, a lot of dead weight has been trimmed away. This film probably takes more liberties in adapting the source material than any of its predecessors, but that’s arguably for the best, as the things that make a good book don’t necessarily lend themselves to making a good film. My memories of the novel are fairly vague, as I read it within days of its publication, but it’s more of a character piece than the other books, heavily slanted towards the relationships between the young lead characters – and the film is no different. This may not appeal to everyone, but it’s a testament to the excellent cast they have that it works. Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson have grown into their roles as Harry, Ron and Hermione to the point where it has become impossible to envisage anyone else in the roles.

  The film’s strength lies in its performances – alongside the leads, we have the usual assembly of great British actors, most of whom are given relatively little to do. Of the existing adult cast, Michael Gambon once again gets the lion’s share as Dumbledore, but the main addition to the ranks is Jim Broadbent as Horace Slughorn, the Hogwarts Potions teacher with a dark past. It’s a genuinely surprising and impressive performance, veering between light comedy and a rather poignant two-hander with Daniel Radcliffe, which has to rank as one of my favourites in the series. Also, special mention should go once more to Evanna Lynch as Luna Lovegood, who steals the scene whenever she’s appearing – it’s a relatively minor part, but she’s perfectly cast as the eccentric dreamer and sometime love interest to Harry.

  Where the film falls down a little, though, is in the adventure stakes. There are lots of great and very funny scenes, which enhance the characters considerably, but there’s very little action, and even less that directly involves Harry. That’s partly down to JK Rowling’s novel – indeed, a couple of memorable action sequences were created specially for the film – but it does leave us with an adventure film that’s decidedly short on adventuring. The climax of the film isn’t well handled, with its big moment – one of the most significant in the series – squandered somewhat by being considerably underplayed.

   Regardless, it’s still one of the most enjoyable blockbusters I’ve seen this year, and if you’ve enjoyed previous films, this is well worth two and a half hours of your time. It might make a little more sense if you’ve read the book already, though with the Potter series, you can pretty much take that as read. The seventh and final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, is being divided into two films – which will be of immense financial benefit to Warner Bros, I’m quite sure – but may hopefully allow the story a little room to breathe, something the more recent films have struggled with. We’ll see.