Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince **** (2009, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint) – Classic Movie Review 534

Harry Potter begins his sixth year at Hogwarts in 2009 in the franchise’s penultimate episode, directed by David Yates. The boy wizard discovers an old book marked ‘the property of the Half-Blood Prince’ and begins to learn more about Lord Voldemort’s dark past.

After the long wait till July 2009 following the postponement of its intended 2008 Christmas release, thankfully it’s spellbinding business as usual at Hogwarts – with no surprises but one major shock. There’s a slight sense of cosy deja-vu with the familiar situations and locations, another game of Quidditch strongly featured and most of the thespian old hands back. But the arrival on the scene of Jim Broadbent as former Potions Professor Horace Slughorn and Hero Fiennes-Tiffin (Ralph Fiennes’ real-life nephew) as the young Lord Voldemort and Frank Dillane as his teenage version freshens things up nicely.

Yet Michael Gambon’s the star of the show this time, with lots to do as Dumbledore, allowing him to relax and settle down to a much more subtle, appealing performance rather than just doing his usual actory turn.

Made with loving care, this is a fantastic production. It’s the best looking movie of the whole series, though arguably maybe it’s all a bit too seamless. They’re making all the movie magic look a bit too easy! And there’s a lovely gleamingly dark look to the film thanks to the work of the new French cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel catching location work in the Scottish Highlands.

JK Rowling’s narrative suffers from the usual problem of any penultimate episode in a saga. It slows and slips down a gear as it tries to set up the final conflict. For example, a lot of screen time’s wasted setting up Slughorn’s arrival at the school. To get round this, Rowling brings on some teenage romantic entanglements for Harry, Ron and Hermione. These are promising developments, but they prove rather tentative and tepid – and the movie’s well low in the hot snogging department!

And the film-makers bring on a bit of extra action with the collapsing Millennium Bridge in London and the Death Eater attack at the Burrow. You could say that these are a bit gratuitous, maybe, but they are welcome additions as spectacle and excitement none the less.

Somehow, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint don’t really have enough acting to do to establish their authority on the film this time, but they’ve become increasingly attractive presences and appealing personalities now they’ve grown older.

Inspecting Steve Kloves’s screenplay and uncovering a wrong turn in it, Rowling surprised the film-makers by telling them that Dumbledore is gay, and that his only crush was on the wizard Grindelwald!

Dave Legeno, who plays the werewolf Fenrir Greyback in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Parts 1 and 2, died while hiking in Death Valley, California, on July 6 2014, age 50.

In August 2014 the always modest, charming and candid Daniel Radcliffe said he had watched all the Harry Potter movies and doesn’t think he was all that great: ‘My acting is very one note and I can see I got complacent and what I was trying to do just didn’t come across. It’s hard to watch a film like Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince because I’m just not very good in it.’

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© Derek Winnert 2013 Classic Movie Review 534

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