Another year passes, and another Harry Potter film comes along. Ever billed as a series of films for the whole family, it is quite nice to see that this iteration has kept to the friendly tone of its predecessors, although it has lost some of the dark [...]]]>

Another year passes, and another Harry Potter film comes along. Ever billed as a series of films for the whole family, it is quite nice to see that this iteration has kept to the friendly tone of its predecessors, although it has lost some of the dark tension of its source material in doing so.
The original book is a tale of Voldemort’s growing strength, both over Harry’s school year, and during his original rise to power. It forebodes the dystopian setting of the final book, occasionally dipping into the personal lives of the characters to lighten its tone. The filmakers, in possibly a wise profit making move, if maybe not so good from a storytelling perspective, have decided to change the tone of the film from this feeling of dread to a happier one, concentrating more on the relationships between the Hogwarts characters than that of Harry and Voldemort.

One can, unfortunately, see the change of screenwriters in this. Steve Kloves, who took a film off from adapting Harry Potter during “Order of the Phoenix”, returns, and seems to have decided that any character development (or lack of such) undertaken in the previous film should be ignored in favour of his version of events at the beginning of this film. Ginny is therefore oddly close to Harry even from the start, despite Harry’s relationship with Cho Chang in the previous film. This is especially obvious in the Quiddich tryouts, where Ginny stands with Harry, away from the rest of the croud addressing the prospective players, despite Harry and Ginny never having been shown as being more than friends, whilst Ron is relegated to stand with the other players.
On the flip-side of the newly discovered romances in the films however, it is nice to see Ron and Hermione being given much more character depth beyond Hermione’s irritated/knowledgable persona and Ron’s general goofiness. Both characters have much more filled out roles in this film, as their attitudes towards each other change from the previous rather covert portrayal, to their new, much more obvious attemts at each other.  By the end of the film however, I had begun to feel that I was being beaten around the head with this a little, as the “Ron and Hermione like each other, as do Harry and Ginny” message was repeated about every ten minutes throughout the film, just in case you had forgotten. This treatment befell several other plot-points as well, although it is possible that this is merely a harkening to the the films younger audience members.

The film’s more human focus is a to stark contrast to the few action-packed sequences which did manage to make it through the child-proofing process. Near the beginning of the film there is an astounding fly-through of London, climaxing in the destruction of the Millenium Bridge by Death Eaters, which continues the high standard of  special effects which have been apparent throughout all of the films. The basis of the film of course relies on these special effects, and although gigantic CG montages are of course in evidence once again, with several large-scale shots of the castle, a quite impressive climactic battle, and a rather perfunctory Quidditch match, it’s the small things that are really impressive throughout the film. I was particularly pleased by Ginny’s pink tribble (miniature puffskein), which was a nice nod to the original text. My only major complaint is the lack of adherance to the work on the previous films. I realise that it’s now basically cannon that Hogwarts and its surroundings look completely different in every film (I suppose it’s another way of hiding the castle and hinting at its magical origins), however the Dark Mark has changed form completely for this film, and whilst it looks slightly less ridiculous than that in the Goblet of Fire (which was incredibly cartoony), it is rather difficult to connect the two, especially during its first short appearence in the film.

The film contains many of these nods, for better or for worse. Dumbledore has a blackened hand throughout the film, for example, and although he doesn’t elaborate on how he got it at such great length as in the book, it’s nice to see that such things have still been carried over. Lupin and Tonks are in the film as well, although their contribution towards the general angst of it all has been reduced to a single throwaway line by Tonks as they leave the Weasleys’. Some of these short mentions however, seem to have been the effect of cuts for time, as Fenrir Greyback is mentioned prominently during the first part of the film, despite his part being mainly reduced to running at the characters out of a cornfield, before growling and running back in again, in possibly the least effective attack ever undertaken by any Death Eater, (although the others of his group do more than make up for it). The largest of these losses is unfortunately the title, where, although the film does explain the origin of the Half-Blood Prince, it’s rather unclear why he should be important enough to merit inclusion in the title, and the rather brilliant double-meaning is lost.

Despite these foibles, the film is held up extremely well by its (as usual) excellent cast. Alan Rickman, despite his sadly brief appearances and rather neutered storyline, manages to add an impressive air of cold distain into every scene he enters in an excellent characterisation of Snape, whilst Michael Gambon does well in showing us many more sides of Dumbledore. Jim Broadbent is, of course, truly brilliant as Slughorn, portraying his indulgances and eccentricities wonderfully to bring a greatly likable character to the film. The main cast also perform extremely well, despite some of their more Lucas-esque “romantic” lines, and perform their characters to a higher standard than ever before.

In general, the film is a success for Potter fans, and brings us succinclty towards the closing chapters of the story. Although the original book’s rather enjoyable dark tone has mostly been removed from the film, the theme of light’s fight over darkness still perseveres (nicely illustrated in a scene near the end of the film), bringing the common theme of hope against all troubles back to the audience. Whilst not quite keeping up to the standard of the book, it’s still a nice family film, and worth watching for any fans of the Harry Potter saga.