Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)
Country: GB/US
Technical: col/2.35:1 153m
Director: David Yates
Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Michael Gambon, Jim Broadbent, Alan Rickman, Helena Bonham Carter, Maggie Smith, Robbie Coltrane, Tom Felton
Synopsis:
Dumbledore uses Harry as bait to lure a former teacher back onto the staff so that he can extract an invaluable memory concerning his special former pupil, Tom Riddle (aka Voldemort). At the same time Draco Malfoy has been selected to perform a dastardly deed on behalf of the Deatheaters led by Bellatrix Lestrange, and he prowls around Hogwarts castle up to no good with a vanishing cabinet. Meanwhile the hormones kick in in a big way for Harry and his friends, even though Harry himself is distracted by his discovery of dubious scribblings in a potion book formerly used by a certain Half-Blood Prince.
Review:
From the opening scene set in a deserted railway station the makers adopt a greyish, colour-drained look for this sixth instalment, which they keep for the rest of the series, and it is very dark too! This is all very effective in conjuring an atmosphere of renewed gravity and dread as the stakes get higher and the death toll rises. It is again somewhat lazily told (one wonders what the Christmas holidays added, even though it is good to have a sense of a proper school year) but readers of the books must not be disappointed and for others the plot finally starts to make sense, even if we are confounded at the end by the revelation that good has prevailed far less than we thought. Yates again directs with a feel for the relative humour of the Ron scenes and the bumbling Slughorn, while displaying a talent for stillness and suspense elsewhere, with Harry's nocturnal trailing of Malfoy along the corridors of the castle nicely framed and composed in depth. One indicator of the tighter focus here is the relative brevity of the film's cast of character actors!
Country: GB/US
Technical: col/2.35:1 153m
Director: David Yates
Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Michael Gambon, Jim Broadbent, Alan Rickman, Helena Bonham Carter, Maggie Smith, Robbie Coltrane, Tom Felton
Synopsis:
Dumbledore uses Harry as bait to lure a former teacher back onto the staff so that he can extract an invaluable memory concerning his special former pupil, Tom Riddle (aka Voldemort). At the same time Draco Malfoy has been selected to perform a dastardly deed on behalf of the Deatheaters led by Bellatrix Lestrange, and he prowls around Hogwarts castle up to no good with a vanishing cabinet. Meanwhile the hormones kick in in a big way for Harry and his friends, even though Harry himself is distracted by his discovery of dubious scribblings in a potion book formerly used by a certain Half-Blood Prince.
Review:
From the opening scene set in a deserted railway station the makers adopt a greyish, colour-drained look for this sixth instalment, which they keep for the rest of the series, and it is very dark too! This is all very effective in conjuring an atmosphere of renewed gravity and dread as the stakes get higher and the death toll rises. It is again somewhat lazily told (one wonders what the Christmas holidays added, even though it is good to have a sense of a proper school year) but readers of the books must not be disappointed and for others the plot finally starts to make sense, even if we are confounded at the end by the revelation that good has prevailed far less than we thought. Yates again directs with a feel for the relative humour of the Ron scenes and the bumbling Slughorn, while displaying a talent for stillness and suspense elsewhere, with Harry's nocturnal trailing of Malfoy along the corridors of the castle nicely framed and composed in depth. One indicator of the tighter focus here is the relative brevity of the film's cast of character actors!
Country: GB/US
Technical: col/2.35:1 153m
Director: David Yates
Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Michael Gambon, Jim Broadbent, Alan Rickman, Helena Bonham Carter, Maggie Smith, Robbie Coltrane, Tom Felton
Synopsis:
Dumbledore uses Harry as bait to lure a former teacher back onto the staff so that he can extract an invaluable memory concerning his special former pupil, Tom Riddle (aka Voldemort). At the same time Draco Malfoy has been selected to perform a dastardly deed on behalf of the Deatheaters led by Bellatrix Lestrange, and he prowls around Hogwarts castle up to no good with a vanishing cabinet. Meanwhile the hormones kick in in a big way for Harry and his friends, even though Harry himself is distracted by his discovery of dubious scribblings in a potion book formerly used by a certain Half-Blood Prince.
Review:
From the opening scene set in a deserted railway station the makers adopt a greyish, colour-drained look for this sixth instalment, which they keep for the rest of the series, and it is very dark too! This is all very effective in conjuring an atmosphere of renewed gravity and dread as the stakes get higher and the death toll rises. It is again somewhat lazily told (one wonders what the Christmas holidays added, even though it is good to have a sense of a proper school year) but readers of the books must not be disappointed and for others the plot finally starts to make sense, even if we are confounded at the end by the revelation that good has prevailed far less than we thought. Yates again directs with a feel for the relative humour of the Ron scenes and the bumbling Slughorn, while displaying a talent for stillness and suspense elsewhere, with Harry's nocturnal trailing of Malfoy along the corridors of the castle nicely framed and composed in depth. One indicator of the tighter focus here is the relative brevity of the film's cast of character actors!