Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Editorial

It seems so long ago – exactly two years in fact – since we left Harry Potter and friends, and anyone not of Hogwarts Dux standard on all things Pottery can be forgiven for not being sure where we got up to.

The decision of Warner Bros to forego its usual pre-Christmas release for a Boy Wizard movie makes financial sense for their 2009 accounting, and the millions of Potterites are, without doubt, good to go.

But even a protracted introductory bit of back-story chitchat between Daniel Radcliffe's bespectled hero and his mentor, Michael Gambon's Professor Dumbledore, doesn't refresh the memory for mere Muggles.

So, for those not quite up to speed, Previously on Harry Potter: Sirius died, Lucius Malfoy was packed off to Azkaban and a revitalised Voldemort continues lurking (but not in this picture). Now Dumbledore is intent on extra private life-lessons for Harry, whose assistance is required to sleuth out a key secret from Voldemort's youth as Tom Riddle.

As befits the Hogwarts tradition of dodgy instructors, another new eccentric professor is engaged: Jim Broadbent's Horace Slughorn. His area of expertise is Potions, which creates opportunities for several fiascos.

Ominously, the master for Defense Against the Dark Arts (a position that bodes ill each and every school year) is now Alan Rickman's inscrutable Severus Snape, whose withering way with one-liners and inexhaustible creepiness continue to be a highlight of the whole shebang.

The artistic challenge has always been telling a story that stands up whether or not one is au fait with the J. K. Rowling canon. It's only just about met this time.

The earliest films sprawled though every chapter of the source novels, fearful of leaving anything out while being enthusiastic about realising every bit of whimsy in the wizardy world of Hogwarts.

The middle films picked up the pace with freer adaptation as developments grew darker. The Half-Blood Prince reverts to overlength, but still wrestles with blending the impending doom side of things (manifestations of which were a tad distressing to our smaller audience consultants) with the humour, heartache and angst of adolescent amours essential to what is, after all, a coming-of-age chronicle.

But major plot points slip by (we're still wondering what a horcrux is exactly!), big doings seem rushed and more everyday goings on extended. Do we really need another game of Quidditch to lighten the mood, when a destiny of doom and gloom is supposed to be closing in?

Given the destruction in London that opens the film, it seems odd that the consequences of that or anything else in the outside world don't rate a mention.

The acting is once again wildly variable. The renowned elder thespians, apart from Gambon, Broadbent and Rickman, barely feature, with the emphasis on the youngsters. While the leads have grown with their characters, some of the teens are, frankly, dull and graceless.

The standout achievement in the film is knockout spectacle, courtesy of cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel and production designer Stuart Craig, with one climactic sequence amid flames giving Dumbledore his Moses parting the Red Sea moment. That's the image we'll remember best until HP7 Part One arrives, ETA November, 2010.

Angie Errigo