Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince may be the funniest film in the series although it could have done more to assume its intended place as the saddest one to date. As usual, it’s a very well produced film. Direction is somewhat atypical, but the odd camera angles seem appropriate. The actors do excellent work, especially Jim Broadbent, Alan Rickman, and Michael Gambon. Almost everyone could screen this film and enjoy themselves, as shown by a nearly $160 million opening weekend gross and an 84% Rotten Tomatoes Rating.
However, The Half-Blood Prince disappoints in a way that foreshadows what made the final volume so unsatisfying. Severus Snape is not featured enough in this movie. For the first six books, he is Harry’s antagonist (Voldemort is more of a rival to Dumbledore because of their exceptional powers). When Harry is eleven, it is acceptable for Snape to be distant, because a strict teacher is a suitable foe for a child. But as Harry grows older, he should become aware that Snape is much more than an embittered educator.
Like the previous film which glossed over the Occlumency training that Snape provided to Harry, this work needed another ten to fifteen minutes further explaining Snape’s motives. A major failure of the books is that they don’t explain Snape until the end. Revealing little pieces throughout would have made for a more complicated and sophisticated relationship between the two. Severus Snape is not an example of absolute good or evil and is like in real person in that he regrets mistakes, suffers from doubt, and seeks to atone for his past.
The Harry Potter series became so popular because author J.K. Rowling displayed tremendous imagination in creating an entire world based on magic. The characters may have the ability to perform magic but they are as fallible as anyone else (they have bad relationships although they break-up using Owl messengers, instead of Facebook wall posts). The last two books become a tangled web of plot threads. Some of the storylines are poorly developed and clutter the entire work. Likewise, this story features some superfluous sub-plots that could have been ignored, such as the Death Eaters’ abductions and the destruction of the Weasleys’ Burrow, because there is no follow-up.
Narrowing the focus of the film and emphasizing the characters and their actions would have told a better. Harry was forced into this role as “the boy that lived” but at this point in the series, he has reached a point where he must choose whether or not to claim his destiny. As audience members who have read the novels and seen the films, we are entitled to know why he made his choices. **½