Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Is the Harry Potter series the anti-Star Trek? The sci-fi franchise of the Shatner variety has been famously called out for having its best films be the even-numbered ones (The Wrath of Khan, The Voyage Home, etc.); Harry Potter seems to be following the odd-numbered sequence, with Chamber of Secrets, Goblet of Fire and now this, Half-Blood Prince showing up to be the lesser of the six films to date.

There are fans who are bound to be disappointed, as is the case with any hard to please hardcore fan group, but as a film, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" succeeds on its own merits. It is a fantastic, thrilling and emotional experience, and while Harry's world may have turned much darker than the world of wonder and magic that it started off, it's still a wonderful and familiar place that is a complete pleasure to return to.

The sixth Harry Potter movie - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - started somewhat at a disadvantage for me, in that it was based on my least favourite book of the series.

With the familiar cast members all there, I found the acting for the most part good or very good. Unlike some I really liked Michael Gambon's portrayal of Dumbledore, and the regular crew of Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint as Harry, Hermoine and Ron all give solid performances; albeit Harry's attempts at humour in the first 20 minutes or so of the film almost invariably fell flat, and sometimes they struggle to look as young as the characters they're portraying.

The movie seemed to be so focused on a small handful of characters though that everyone else was there merely to make up the numbers; for me the acting itself wasn't a disappointment, but the use of characters definitely was.

I enjoyed some parts of The Half-Blood Prince immensely, but most of it left me rather unmoved. Whatever anyone says isn't going to stop it from becoming one of the biggest-grossing films of all time, of course, but it really felt like a missed opportunity.