Reviewed by Lamar Kukuk
7/20/09
And down the stretch we come!
By the summer of 2011, we'll have spent considerably more cinematic time
(a little over 20 hours) in the world of Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort
than an entire season of a serialized TV show (whose 22 episodes amount
to about 15 hours without commercials). Some really brilliant storytelling
has gone on during chapters 3-5, but perhaps it was inevitable that as
we near the end, just like a TV show, we'd find one of the films slowing
down a bit to let J.R. Rowling's glorious characters catch their breath
as they prepare for their final battle. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood
Prince contains some huge, momentous moments in the saga, and rephrases
the discussion about one of the key characters in a way no doubt pivotal
to the coming two-part climax. It also spends a lot of time just
hanging out with Harry and friends as they sort through the kind of problems
you can't solve with a magic wand. As such, it's one of the weaker
entries in this remarkable franchise, but still well worth seeing.
Death Eaters are on the prowl,
attacking and abducting wizards all over England, and even going so far
as to destroy London's Millennium Bridge. Dumbledore (Michael Gambon)
takes Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) to visit Horace Slughorn (Jim Broadbent),
and successfully uses Harry's growing celebrity to persuade the former
Professor to return and teach a potions class at Hogwart's. Meanwhile,
Professor Snape (Alan Rickman) is approached by mad Voldemort ally Bellatrix
Lestrange (Helena Bonham Carter) about aiding and protecting Draco Malfoy
(Tom Felton), who's been selected for a critical task. Returning
to Hogwort's for a sixth year, Harry and his best friends Ron (Rupert Gint)
and Hermoine (Emma Watson) try to settle back into the rhythm of classes
and the stirrings of teen romance. With Ron starring on the Quidditch
team, he's got plenty of admirers blinding him to Hermoine's interest,
while Harry becomes drawn to Ron's sister Ginny (Bonnie Wright).
Potter stars in Slughorn's class thanks to an old copy of the textbook
her found in a closet. Signed “Property of the Half-Blood Prince”,
it reveals all manner of magical secrets both helpful and dark. Dumbledore
asks Harry to become closer to Slughorn, who likes to “collect” prize pupils
as friends: as a showdown with Voldemort draws closer, the truth
about a decades-old meeting between the Professor and young Tom Riddle
(Frank Dillane) might be Harry's only hope for victory. But what
is Draco doing with that dusty old cabinet in the room of Requirement?
If you enjoy the Harry Potter
characters, odds are you'll enjoy Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
More than any of the other films, it's focused like a laser on them and
their journey through the pitfalls of adolescence. It's really amazing
how well Radcliffe, Grint and Watson have matured as actors, but they have
spent the last 8 years attending a dream acting school working with pretty
much every one of the UK's top actors and many top directors to boot.
Here, they navigate the teen romance material with a light, empathetic
touch that makes what could be CW Network nonsense fun and at times touching.
But if you're only interested
in the plot and spectacle of the franchise, the sixth movie will be a disappointment.
This is very much a chance to stop and allow the filmmakers to move their
pieces into place for the two-part climax Harry Potter and the Deathly
Hallows which begins in November 2010. It's a big movie for Rickman's
Snape, who finally answers the question of which side he's on (at least,
I think he does, although we may disagree about which scene contains that
answer). The actor remains perfectly pitched in the role, so deliberately
cold and grim that his every word drips with contempt, menace or both.
But otherwise, not a whole lot happens in terms of the overall arc.
We get some insight on young Tom Riddle (played brilliantly by Voldemort
actor Ralph Finnes' nephew Hero Finnes-Tiffin at age 11 and the icy cold
Frank Dillane at 16), and a major plot point ends the film. But when
all is said and done, it's hard to say exactly what the plot of The
Half-Blood Prince is all about. I was surprised when the identity
of the Prince is revealed, but unless it becomes clearer the next time
out, I'm not sure why it matters. There's an opportunity to parallel
the dark past of Tom Riddle and the path that ever-so-helpful textbook
tempts Harry with, but not much comes of either thread. The franchise
is mostly spinning its' wheels, but they are fine wheels to watch spin,
and I enjoyed spending another 150-odd minutes with these characters.
David Yates directs for the
second time and has brought a different, more stripped-down sensibility
to the franchise than his predecessors. Gone is the “magic” of Hogwort's,
the moving pictures and staircases and magical grand hall. It's a
darker, more realistic world Harry and his friends occupy now. But
Half-Blood
Prince is the lightest Potter movie in a while, filled with romantic
comedy and silly moments. I've avoided spoilers about the final book,
wanting to experience the whole story on film before moving to Rowling's
novels, but I can't help but think this is our final chance to spend time
with these characters as “kids”. From here on, it's war.
While it's clear that the
biggest reason for the decision to split The Deathly Hallows into
two movies is money, there's a clear artistic imperative to do so as well:
you don't have to be a fan of the books to see that by this point, Yates
and writer Steve Kloves are compressing like mad to try and fit as much
of Rowling's work into two and a half hours as they can. Like its'
predecessor, The Order of the Phoenix,
Half-Blood
Prince is really low on transitional shots and races from incident
to incident with a checklist trying to get it all in there. I'd have
loved to see more of the Tom Riddle flashbacks, for instance, and it's
a little odd to see the huge revolving name cast show up in some cases
for mere seconds (does Timothy Spall have even a single line as Wormtail?).
It's easy to lose sight of
what a monumental and unprecedented achievement the Harry Potter films
are. No one else has ever even attempted to tell such an epic story
over so many continuous movies, and being the “glass half-full” guy that
I am, I'm amazed by how well they've done so. But while the cast
remains at the top of their ever-growing games, Harry Potter and the
Half-Blood Prince is starting to show signs of fatigue behind the camera.
But it's nothing making the last book into two really, really long movies
shouldn't fix. Something tells me the suits in the Warner Bros. accounting
department agree with me. |
