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Bookmark this pageHarry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)
Director: David Yates
Movie review
From Time Out London
Click here to read our exclusive interview with Daniel Radcliffe
Harry shaves! Harry snogs! But stay your wand, there are other forces of darkness besides late adolescence which are afflicting the poor orphaned wizard of Hogwarts and his hormone-raging contemporaries. For one, Voldemort’s allies, the aerial, ink-trailing Death Eaters, are ravaging London. Ping! Pling! There go the stanchions of the Millennium Bridge! And Harry has hardly been re-admitted to school, following the departure of Mrs Umbridge, last term’s knit-robed Robespierre, when Dumbledore teleports him to Tudor-relic Budleigh Babberton to meet and recruit one-time Potions Master Horace Slughorn (Jim Broadbent, disguised as a sofa).
False-memory syndrome is at the heart of this next stage of the fight against evil forces: Dumbledore’s phials of stored reminiscences have been polluted, and it is sly Slughorn’s recall of his past tutoring of a Horcrux-fascinated student which may hold a necessary and life-saving corrective.
Longer than the last, the sixth episode of the adventures of the increasingly burdened magic warrior of Privet Drive is a more human affair than its predecessors. It’s as full of the romantic dalliances of the maturing students as it is of warring set-pieces, creature shocks and detours down dark Dickensian alleys. We can already sense the two-part seventh and final saga on the horizon, and the whole less-frenzied affair is tonally and emotionally suggestive of a post-battle re-grouping before a final cinematic assault.
To this end, scriptwriter Steve Kloves, back after a one-film sabbatical, has ably summed up the JK Rowling doorstopper by omitting a major battle and axeing at least one character. Also, the fine, less showy work by new DoP Bruno Delbonnel and Nicholas Hopper’s non-strident second Potter score are in tune with director Yates’s laudable refusal to underline too forcefully moments of triumph and disaster. Togther, they allow space for as much human detail, intimacy, humour and, indeed, pathos as a family magical/fantasy action adventure will allow.
Thus – thrillseekers beware – the film’s memorable scenes are, interestingly, not necessarily the most momentous: the sad, assembled Weasleys regarding their crooked Norfolk tower; a lionine, wind-tossed Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) framed in the Hogwarts tower with all the grandeur of Powell and Pressburger’s ‘Black Narcissus’; poor Emma Watson’s Hermione crying in solitary heartbreak; blonde bombshell Draco Malfoy pitied in a picture of isolated evil. Rupert Grint’s Ron is still the leavening star – striking funny, victorious poses in the series’s last game of Quidditch – but Daniel Radcliffe’s less self-conscious and more self-deprecating Harry runs him a close second.
Click here to read our exclusive interview with Daniel Radcliffe
Author: Wally Hammond
Time Out London Issue 2030, 16-23 July, 2009
User reviews of this film
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- Mike said...
- Posted on Jul 27 2009 21:02 Not a patch on the early Harry Potter films. Long scenes of love interest which will only appeal to adolescent girls. The plot completely lost me and I could easily have walked out.
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- Laura said...
- Posted on Jul 27 2009 18:42 Did anyone else miss seeing the Diadum (or however you spell it) in the Room of Requirements while Harry was putting the book in there? Kind of a big part to the next movie that is missing huh?
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- Peter Blackburn said...
- Posted on Jul 27 2009 13:53 The first 5 films were entertainment and I watched them back to back before going to see the Half Blood Prince - and I have to say it was a huge dissappointment. I don't think I'll bother with the following 2 films, the direction was weak andthe plot line disjointed and ended abruptly. I expected better, and was hugely dissapointed.
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- lisa o'neill said...
- Posted on Jul 26 2009 20:04 arduous!
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- lucy said...
- Posted on Jul 26 2009 19:16 i loved it and thought it was amazing. Just alittle disppointed they missed out the fight at the end.
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- lucy said...
- Posted on Jul 26 2009 19:11 i thougt it was excellent but if i had to blaim anyone about the films poor points it would be david yates he missed out to much and changed other scenes to much but other than that i thought it was funny and enjoyable
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- steve said...
- Posted on Jul 26 2009 15:15 the first four movies have been great, and after all the anticipation of the fifth film i was expecting a wonderful experience but i as were my family felt disappointed in this poorly portrayed film.
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- JJJ said...
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Posted on Jul 25 2009 20:04
David Yates has officially ruined this movie. I watched the film with many friends and they all thought it was dreadful. How can a big hollywood director release something this bad. I don't seem to get why David Yates could'nt have just done the film like the book. The book was amazing and due to the task that was handed to David Yates, i would have thought he would have pulled out all the stops to make this film incredible. Instead he made it shit.
David it's really simple, just do the film like the book, surely it's not that difficult seen as it's already written for you. I bet he probably hasn't even read the book. Because if he had, he would realise that all he's set the seventh one up for is failure. In what universe would he think or the people writing the screenplay feel that they could do a better job than the author. It just shows idiotic arrogance and also indicates how low Yate's IQ score must be.
Looking back on the film, i can make the fair statement that not one scene had been done better than it had in the book. The acting from the cast appeared almost wooden and arkward like it was a GCSE performance in front of the rest of your class.
Aside from the amount of content that has been left out, meaning that a miracle must happen to recover in the seventh installement, my opinion is that the best scene in that whole film was when the death eaters attacked the burrow, and that wasn't even in the book. What sort of statement is that.
If Yates wants to be a writter then he's in the wrong proffession, but before he writes, he's got to learn how to read. And he should probably learn before the seventh film is released and READ THE BOOK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - Report as inappropriate
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- rachel said...
- Posted on Jul 25 2009 17:35 the book is wayyyyyyyyy better, but it is pretty funny..mainly for the wrong reasons though and the 'romantic scenes' are the funniest pahhhhhhhah...its alrite though.
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- madiline humfrey said...
- Posted on Jul 25 2009 11:37 it was amazing!!! mloved it 2 bits!!! go see it its soo gr8 and funni
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- adam said...
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Posted on Jul 25 2009 09:47
Man i hated it, if you want to know my opinion the only film of Harry Potter worse than this is the chamber of secrets.
BUT THE BOOK IS EXCELLENT!!!! TRY IT! - Report as inappropriate
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- zoeeeeee said...
- Posted on Jul 24 2009 19:22 the film was good but not as good as the others!!! dont go see it at the imax by god it well uncomfortable. good filmish however the ending is shote no big fighttt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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- claire said...
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Posted on Jul 24 2009 18:41
i also wished to mention Dumbledore's pointless and unlike realistic to him lines "can i use you toilet", "harry you need a shave" and one silly one about "borrowing a cross stitch or knitting magazine from the loo?????!?!
omg!!! for a mysterious and highly respected wizard...what a con!!!! - Report as inappropriate
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- claire said...
- Posted on Jul 24 2009 18:36 as an avid harry potter watcher and fan i couldn't wait for this to be released. What the hell happened!?!? i was really shocked at the poor quality compared to all the others. a real let down, my kids liked it but didn't rave about it like the others. i was really disappointed and would not see it again or would i recommend it. poor poor ending. the whole thing mainly focused on relationships, not the big build up of he who should not be named and harry??!! what a croc of sh*t!!!!!
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- Nicole said...
- Posted on Jul 24 2009 16:16 Harry Potter ROCKS!!!!!!!!!
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Now showing
This film is showing at these cinemas near Leicester Square, Greater London
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Cast & crew
Director: David Yates
Cast: Helena Bonham Carter, Emma Watson, Alan Rickman, Jessie Cave, Rupert Grint, Bonnie Wright, Jim Broadbent, Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon, Tom Felton, Helen McCrory, David Thewlis, Robbie Coltrane, Warwick Davis, Evanna Lynch, Natalia Tena, Julie Walters full cast
Genre(s): Action/Adventure, Drama
Duration: 153 mins
UK Release: Jul 17 2009
US Release: Jul 17 2009
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