"HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF BLOOD PRINCE"(09)...
I suppose that by now the entire movie going public has already seen this film. In any event, you certainly don't need me
to tell you what to think of it, since you have already made up your own mind. This is the sixth film of the Harry Potter
saga adapted from the books written by J. K. Rowling with the help of Steve Kloves, the author of this screenplay.
A Harry Potter film is a money machine which is guaranteed
to rake in cash like no other film in history. The producers can afford to go first class since they are always assured of
a great return on their investment. Furthermore, the reading public of the book demands it, since the human imagination is
even more inventive than a camera. The production values are extraordinary as no expense has been spared to add every wow
factor possible. The filming is also first rate, and the acting by most of the actors more than adequate. A treat in this
film is seeing Jim Broadbent playing Professor Horace Slughorn.
What begins to lag here are some of the characters.
For example, I simply cannot understand the appeal of Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint), a likable enough lump of a kid who has the
charisma of a sponge. I find it rather nonsensical for J. K. Rowling to push his sexual attraction in this story for two different
girls, one of whom is Hermione Granger, the brightest kid in the room. I will never understand what she sees in Weasley.
All of the kids are teenagers now, and they act like
it. This has its good points and its bad points. I like some of the beginning examples of sexual tension, and I liked even
more the late night chats between long time friends. Many of the former kids are turning into men with strong physiques. Rupert
Grint is an example of a boy turning into an adult male, and there are many other students who are maturing as well.
However, what I found odd is that the only person who does not seem to be maturing is the lead, Daniel Radcliffe, who plays
Harry Potter. Sadly, he doesn't seem to have grown at all, and this is not good if a little gravitas becomes necessary for
the final two movies.
That point being made, the only real annoyance that
I had with this movie is the entirely disjointed plot. Characters appeared here and there and everywhere without any explanation,
thus losing any spacial continuity and throwing the chronological continuity into just having to accept everything as a matter
of faith. Never boring, always entertaining, but often too busy with a confusing plot line. (B+, See It and Rent it.)
