Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the sixth movie in the Harry Potter franchise. Based off the extremely popular book series of the same name. If you aren't familiar with the series it follows a young boy named Harry Potter. Back in the first installment he finds out that he's a wizard. Not only is he a wizard but he's also a very special boy. His parents were both killed by a dark wizard named Lord Voldemort. Harry however managed to survive an attack that should have killed anyone else and Voldemort was left a shell of his former self.
The sixth film starts up with the world still reeling from the news that Lord Voldemort has come back to life and his followers (know as Death Eaters) are wreaking havoc throughout the world. Harry is returning to school for his sixth out of seven total years. But things this time around have gotten pretty dark.
The headmaster of the school, Dumbledore, has asked Harry assistance in becoming friends with the new potions professor named Slughorn. I won't go too heavy into the details as I don't want to spoil any key parts of the plot for those of you that haven't read the books.
Now obviously the comparisons are going to be made between the book and the movie. Now the book is over 500 pages long and the movie runs about 2 hours and 20 minutes. So obviously they had to cut a few things out. But thankfully nothing that is cut out is too important. Also the author J.K. Rowling has final say about what goes into the movies so nothing that is left on the cutting room floor will hurt the overall flow of the movie or the rest of the series.
All of the actors from the previous movies have returned to reprise their roles. Now all of the kids are supposed to be around 16 or 17 but the actors are now all in their 20s. This is pretty obvious but it's easy enough to get over that fact and just enjoy the movie for what it is. Because at this stage any recasting of the major characters would have hurt the franchise a great deal. Now I do like the actor that plays Dumbledore but I still wish that Richard Harris hadn't died because I think he played the character very well in the first two movies. But Michael Gambon has shown himself to be a suitable replacement.
Now does this movie rank amongst the other Harry Potter movies? While it isn't the best of the bunch it's not the worst either. But overall it didn't flow as well as previous entries in the series and almost seems to be a placeholder to set the events that are going to happen in the last chapter.
The interesting thing is that it was decided that due to the length of the last book the studio is pulling a Kill Bill and splitting it into two seperate movies. I think this is a really good idea and should make it so they can include everything that needs to be in there to wrap up the series.
All I can say at this point is if you aren't a fan of the series I can't really recommend this movie. You won't know what's going on or who the characters are and would probably feel lost. Now if you are looking to get into the series then obviously you should start with the first movie and work your way up. But if you are a fan of the series I think you'll find this to be a good edition to the franchise.
My score: 7.5/10
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