Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

One of the more anticipated films of this summer, HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE can be summed up in one word - boring. This movie wasn't even an hour long before I found my eyelids starting to droop. Millions of dollars, a built-in audience, merchandising galore and the best they can do is this?

Adapting the mammoth, latter Harry Potter books was always going to be a challenge. What to keep? What to eject? Until now, the movies have made fairly intelligent choices, sacrificing non-essential subplots and background detail; losing only the kind of elements that people who'd read the books would be sad to see them cut.

All that’s changed. Director David Yates and screenwriter Steve Kloves seem to have come over deliberately obscure with their choices this time, devoting huge portions of the film to subplots about Harry and his chums’ teenage romances, while treating the plot with apparent disinterest – an unfortunate necessity to be dealt with in as few lines as possible.

Strange, really, since there are many other angles the film could have taken. This could be Voldemort’s film: the book details his origins in a series of flashbacks, which here are reduced to two (arguably three – one’s revisited). It could have Dumbledore’s film (considering his fate), but the relationship between Harry and his mentor remains as underdeveloped as ever, cordial and distant when it should be poignant and charming.

Not that Half Blood Prince is a disaster, just a disappointment. There’s much to enjoy. This is the wittiest film so far, with plenty of genuinely funny moments. The opening scenes of the Death Eaters wreaking havoc in the real world are simply stunning (so much so, you wonder if that’s where all the budget went and why the climax is so dull), and the film has the most exciting Quidditch scenes yet. Jim Broadbent is superb as new Hogwarts teacher Slughorn, a bumbling has-been who at one point delivers a confession of such touching sincerity that it’s the unexpected highlight of the film. And, at last, Alan Rickman’s wonderfully adopted Snape gets more than a cameo appearance for the first time since film one, and he makes the most of every glacially-delivered line(maybe they could've taken care of his hair properly, greasy and oily remember!?). Even the romance stick is well-handled, to be fair... there’s just too much of it.

In the end,the plot is left rattling around and forced to agree with Hermione’s line in the last scene that it’s all been "a waste of time".Quite why Yates and Kloves decided to move the series so far away from its fantasy adventure heartland is puzzling. Then again, maybe our Twilight generation will lap it up. Snape does look a bit like a vampire...

Will Harry potter and the Half Blood Prince be good enough??

Anyone following the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince news for the past year knows that things have been rocky. Die-hard fans winced as reviews flooded in after the preliminary screenings (particularly one in Chicago), preaching mostly disappointment and negativity. Following the screenings, the November 21, 2008 release date was pushed back to July 17, 2009 and then eventually changed to July 15. With all the speculation and the date changes, fans around the globe have been, understandably, apprehensive.

Make no mistake: hard-core fans are still buying the first tickets, still prickling with anticipation and excitement because at the end of the day, let's face it, hard-core fans would stop at nothing to see this movie. And hopefully they won't be disappointed: initial reviews to date have been overall very positive. Consensus seems to be that David Yates, director Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, has created an exciting and well crafted film. Most of the critics are raving about Bruno Delbonnel’s amazing cinematography, Nicholas Hooper's brilliantly crafted score, Stuart Craig’s imaginative designs, and the performances of Hollywood greats Jim Broadbent, Helena Bonham Carter ,Alan Rickman ,and somewhat surprisingly, youngster Daniel Radcliffe. Apparently DRad has taken what could have been a frivolous family movie and made it into a respectable cinematic experience.

So why are fans – myself included – still nervous? As with all of the previous books, every detail can make or break the movie for an individual who's entered Harry's world as completely as most of us have. And despite this, any good filmmaker knows that every single detail simply cannot be included in a movie adaption of a book. Key plot points have been dropped every movie and there is always a contingent of fans who are appalled. This year will be no different. Horcruxes, Slughorn, romances, potions, Quidditch, and so much more must be included and clearly conveyed within the 153 minutes. How do you build all that up without letting fans down?