"Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince" A Magically Good Film!

“The Half Blood Prince”: A Magically Good Film
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Harry Potter seems to have become one of the most famous franchises in film history. This is understandable, the fact being that the actors are picked brilliantly, and they are just great books. Everyone from the original cast is back again including Michal Gambon, the man who took the place of Richard Harris as Dumbledore in 2004. There are some new characters; Lavender Brown (Jessie Cave) and another new teacher named Horace Slughorn (Jim Broadbent.)

The movie opens as Dumbledore takes Harry with him to meet Slughorn, in an attempt to get him back at Hogwarts, to which Slughorn agrees. Harry is then taken to his best friend Ron’s house. Meanwhile, Professor Snape (who is supposed to be a good guy) promises to take care of Draco Malfoy and groom him to take his father’s place as a death eater, since his father is in prison after certain events from the last episode. Once at school, Harry and Dumbledore start to try to understand how to defeat Voldemort by looking into his past. While in class, Harry gets an old textbook with cheat notes written by someone called the Half Blood Prince, thus the name of the book/movie.

Along the way, Harry and Hermione both start to realize their feelings for longtime friends Ron and Ginny, his sister. Ron however, is going out with Lavender Brown, who loves to kiss him. Ginny is going out with variety of boys. Ahhh, young love (and jealousy.)

This film has action, romance, and comedy in it. It focuses on relationships (come on, these people had to grow up sometime) and the great plot J.K. Rowling wove when she wrote the book. I liked that this movie had a bit of realism in it-the characters finally started to act like real people in the relationship department. The comedy also amused me, especially one scene where Ron gets a hold of a love potion meant for Harry. He starts ranting and raving about this girl whom he has never even met! Also, when Harry drinks a luck potion, he becomes quite ridiculous and overconfident. My mom compared him to me when I’m acting silly.

Compared to the other Harry Potters this movie skips around. It was directed by the same man as The Order of the Phoenix, but not films one through four. It starts at chapter 5 or 6, and then goes back to chapter 2. Parents, one scene in this film has Dumbledore and Harry surrounded by dead people or Inferi (dead people brought back to do Voldemort’s bidding) that may be scary to some younger viewers. Some scenes in the film are not in the book at all, like the opening scene and the first half of the 2nd scene. The good news is, Quidditch is back this time. Unfortunately, some scenes from the book were left out that gave detail on the background of the characters. I know it’s a long book and some things must be cut out, but I’m happy to report that “The Deathly Hallows” will be made into two films, not one, so as little as possible will be cut out.

“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” is a funny, action filled film that will entertain most people. I thought that this should be PG-13, like the previous two Potter films, but this one was PG was for scary images (Draco gets a little bloody in one scene), violence, language, and mild sensuality (teenagers kissing.) I rate it PG for Pretty Good.