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Half-Blood Prince Raises the Bar Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince opens July 15
Rated: PG By Alex Clarke American Heritage Important: This article was last updated on July 14, 2009. Please call ahead to confirm hours, prices, dates and other information.
The sixth installment of the world-famous Harry Potter franchise could not have come soon enough. Arriving in theaters two years after Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince starts out with a glimpse of the aftermath of the previous film. Harry stands stoic as journalists shout questions and flashbulbs flash. Sirius Black, Harry’s godfather, has just been murdered. It cuts to a few weeks later, where Harry sits alone in a subway station. Lord Voldemort’s minions, the death eaters, have been causing destruction across London, making it hard for witches and wizards to go out in public. Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore appears, setting the story in motion. He takes Harry to see Horace Slughorn, a retired professor keen to “collect” talented students, a man who is key to Prince's plot. As with J.K. Rowling’s novel, Prince delves further into Dumbledore and Harry’s relationship than previous installments. Aided by a duo of Potter newcomers, this film also heavily emphasizes Harry, Ron and Hermione’s growing romantic and sexual tensions. The slightly mental Lavender Brown (Jessie Cave) begins ravenously following Ron, and a crushed Hermione is chased after by the hunky Cormac McLaggen (Freddie Stroma). At the same time, Harry watches as his feelings grow for Ginny, Ron’s sister, who just happens to have interests of her own. Much of the first half of the film stays light as it examines the characters’ budding relationships. There’s more humor in Prince than in the previous films; much of it focuses on the quirky aspects of teenage love (which is actually quite chaste in this movie – it’s supposed to be a family film, or whatever). Director David Yates, who before helming Phoenix primarily worked in television, effectively moves the story in its darker direction. The film transitions the fun “we’re teens with hormones” scenes into the more serious aspects of the plot. The progress of Prince mirrors the stages of the entire Harry Potter series, starting light and childish and growing progressively more serious and adult. Aided by cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel, Half-Blood Prince has the most distinct style of the Potter films. It matches Alfonso Cuarón’s The Prisoner of Azkaban in pacing, but also showcases a rather gritty, frenzied look during some of the more intense scenes. Despite the mad cries of all the Potter fans who could not believe Warner Bros. would push the film’s release date eight months back, it was a good idea to do so. Prince ends un-ended; Harry, Ron and Hermione mourn for a loved one on the eve of destruction. It’s difficult to think that we will not see them move forward for another year, and it would have been a longer wait with the fall release date. The only consolation, really, is that this film raises the bar for the two-part finale. Let’s just hope the filmmakers rise to it. |
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