Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince Film Review Empire
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Harry and Dumbledore depict closer to the malevolent Lord Voldemort
The climactic scene in "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" takes identify in i of those underground caverns with a lake and an ominous gondola as the means of transportation, popularized by "The Phantom of the Opera." At offset I thought -- no gondola! Only then, one appeared, dripping and hulking. In another movie I might have grinned, simply you know what? By that point, I actually cared.
Yes, this sixth chapter is a darker, more than ominous Harry Potter film, with a conclusion that suggests more than alarmingly the deep dangers Harry and his friends have gotten themselves into. There was ever a disconnect between Harry'due south enchanting school days at Hogwarts and the looming threat of Voldemort. Presumably it would take more than skills at Quidditch to defeat the dreaded Dark Lord.
In one of the opening scenes, we find Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) belatedly at dark in a cafe of the London Underground, reading a re-create of the Daily Prophet which poses the question: Is Harry Potter the Chosen Ane? Past the pic'due south end, he acknowledges that he has, indeed, been chosen to face downward Voldemort (whose proper noun should properly rhyme with the French word for "death," mort; also, since their discussion vol can have meanings such equally "thief" and "steal," Lord Voldemort is well-nigh ominously named).
Harry is distracted from his paper, however, by an instant flirtation with the young waitress, a saucy cutie who informs him, although he asked only with his eyes, that she gets off work at 11. She indeed waits for him on the platform, merely the Chosen One must respond to his college calling from Dumbledore (Michael Gambon), who either materializes, gets off a railroad train, or has a pied-a-terre right there in the Cloak-and-dagger. I for one volition be disappointed if that waitress (I think her name is Elarica Gallagher) doesn't turn upwardly again in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," whose two parts will conclude the series in 2010 and 2011.
That will be none too before long if Harry doesn't desire to steal up on the "Twilight" franchise, since he and his friends, especially poor Ron Weasley, have definitively entered adolescence. Fifty-fifty now he seems to be entertaining thoughts of snoggling with Ron'due south sis Ginny (Bonnie Wright). Yes, Harry, so recently a round-eyed picayune lad, will presently be one of Hogwarts' Onetime Boys.
Director David Yates suggests the transition in subtle ways, 1 of them past making Hogwarts itself seem darker, emptier and more ominous than ever before. Its cheery corridors are now replaced by gloomy Gothic passages, and late in the moving-picture show an unspeakable fate befalls the beloved Dining Hall at the easily of Bellatrix Lestrange (Helena Bonham Carter), who seems to function principally as a destructive vixen, but no dubiety has more ominous goals.
The mission for which Dumbledore summoned Harry at the outset was to visit the London home of Professor Horace Slughorn (Jim Broadbent), who has become reclusive since his Hogwarts days, simply is now urgently needed along with his memories of the immature student Tom Riddle, who grew upwardly to go the man whose name should rhyme with Death. Dumbledore hopes they can observe a secret vulnerability of Voldemort's, and that is why they detect themselves in the underground cave. When this possible key is discovered, I promise you I'one thousand not spoiling annihilation by observing that its bones message is "to exist continued."
There are really two story strands here. One involves the shut working relationship of Dumbledore and Harry on the trail of Voldemort. The other involves everything else: romance and flirtation, Quidditch, a roll call of familiar characters (Hagrid, Snape, McGonagall, Wormtail, Lupin, Filch, Flitwick and Malfoy, whose proper noun could be French for "bad religion"). With names like that, how do they go through Commencement without snickering?
Some of these characters are reprised just as reminders. The giant Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane), for case, turns upwardly primarily to allow us to observe, look who'southward turned upwardly! Snape, as played by Alan Rickman, is given much more dialogue, primarily I suspect considering he invests it with such macabre pauses. Radcliffe's Potter is sturdy and boring, as always; it'southward non easy existence the hero with a supporting cast like this. Michael Gambon steals the bear witness as Dumbledore, who for a man his historic period certainly has some new tricks, and so to speak, up his sleeve.
I admired this Harry Potter. It opens and closes well, and has wondrous art design and cinematography every bit always, only more so. "I'm but beginning to realize how beautiful this identify is," Harry sighs from a loftier turret. The centre passages spin their wheels somewhat, hurrying about to establish events and places non absolutely essential. But those scenes may be specially valued past devoted students of the Potter saga. They may also be the just ones who fully understand them; ordinary viewers may be excused for feeling baffled some of the fourth dimension.
Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert was the motion picture critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his expiry in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.
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Harry Potter and the One-half-Blood Prince (2009)
153 minutes
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