harry potter and the half blood prince full movie

Ash-gray clouds and dark steel-blue hues once again cast an ominous pall over the proceedings, and sights of wondrous magic prove sparse and fleeting, mainly confined to Dumbledore’s sumptuous revitalization of a dilapidated house interior and an ill-fitting visit to the elder Weasley brothers’ gag shop.

Whereas preadolescent fears (of fitting in, of leaving home, of discovering an unknown adult world) were married to distant Voldemort danger in the early films, this latest yarn equates consuming hormonal desires (both frustrated and realized) with pressing malevolent threats from Voldemort’s cadre of Death Eaters, who at story’s beginning have begun brazenly attacking not only the forces of good but also Muggles themselves.

Mostly, though, Yates’s second turn behind the camera never manages to generate the dramatic momentum necessary to create requisite suspense or a sense of import, furthering the impression that this chapter is merely a plot placeholder.Īnd yet despite this thinness, Half-Blood Prince nonetheless often feels fruitful thanks to diligent concentration on the romantic plights of its three pubescent protagonists. If only the anticlimactic ordinariness of this finale were a means of highlighting the mundanity of evil. To an extent even greater than Order of the Phoenix, this Potter only takes a baby step forward, its central tale about Draco Malfoy’s (Tom Felton) attempts to assassinate wizened professor Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) so lean that it soon becomes a background concern, and culminates in a manner that-given the emotional and practical significance of said well-known tragedy-comes off as dispiritingly perfunctory. Which is all well and good, except that for those intimately familiar with Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Hermione (Emma Watson), Ron (Rupert Grint), and the rest of the wizardry gang, there’s no surprise, only obligation, to be found in experiencing the remainder of these big-screen Potter adaptations, of which this sixth is at once rich in character and wispy in narrative. David Yates’s Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince doesn’t bother with establishing backstory-at this point, if you’re not a Hogwarts alum, you have no business here in the first place.

Harry potter and the half blood prince full movie