Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (David Yates, UK/USA, 2009)

Dir. David Yates; starring Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Tom Felton, Michael Gambon, Jim Broadbent, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman

David Yates again takes the director’s chair for the sixth installment of the Harry Potter series. As Harry returns to Hogwart’s school of wizardry for another year of teenager angst and dark magic. Director Yates has the difficult task of adapting J.K. Rowling’s overlong and exposition-heavy novel. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince always felt like a prelude to something else in its literal form, as if Rowling knew how she wanted to end her saga but was unwilling to start that conclusion with her sixth book. The film is much the same. It’s a solid effort with some wonderful moments and fantastic production design, score, and special-effects, but Yates with writer Steve Kloves, can’t overcome the novel’s inadequacies. For a novel that is based far too much in flashback and back-story, the Half Blood Prince as a movie, feels a little disjointed, rushed in places and overcooked in others. Yates goes to the ever-blossoming talent of Rupert Grint’s comic sidekick, or Emma Watson’s teenage lust and broken heart to create some character-driven forward momentum, but it detracts from the underlying battle between good and evil. A battle that Rowling unfortunately presents in the book as a series of dream-induced flashbacks that, had Yates featured in their entirety, have made for a very long (even longer than its current two hours forty) film.

Essentially, The Half Blood Prince as a book and a film, is an introduction to a grander concluding story. As such, it never distances itself from a sense of the episodic. It also doesn’t work as well as the other films in the series as a stand alone story. It expects that you already know what has happened previously, beginning as it does, only hours after the Order of the Phoenix ended. New viewers therefore will feel immediately alienated, and the lack of a consistent plot which doesn’t end satisfactorily, will leave newcomers scratching their heads. Die hard fans of the books will complain Yates left out too much exposition, while fans primarily of the movies (of which I count myself) will begrudge a missed opportunity to make a film that distanced itself from a book that was always going to be troublesome to adapt.

However, you’ve got to give Yates and Kloves credit as the film starts rather well. Through a hazy, over-exposed frame we see a bruised and bloody Harry Potter under the microscope of newspaper men’s flashing camera lenses. The media is beginning to take note of this young magician’s ability after his latest battle with Voldermort left Harry’s godfather Sirius Black dead. Meanwhile, Voldermort’s henchmen, the Deatheaters, are on the rampage. In a sequence that will be shown in 3-D in selected IMAX cinemas, the Deatheaters crash through a grey English sky and fly imperiously through London streets before causing havoc for a bunch of tourists on the Millennium Bridge. It’s a terrific sequence that features a grand score from Nicholas Hooper that fills the soundstage with succulent bombast. Couple this with refined special-effects that seamlessly mix the panoramic views of London with the swashbuckling flying menaces and you have an opening to cherish.

But the early action is a little misleading. After Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Ron (Rupert Grint), and Hermione (Emma Watson) follow Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton) into Borgin and Burkes magic supplies shop, where Yates sets up Draco’s mysterious work for Voldermort the film moves down a gear or two. As the teenagers board the train to Hogwarts, the film begins to concern itself more with romantic sub-plots than Draco’s more interesting late-night excursions to a strange old closet that appears to make things disappear and reappear on his command. Infuriatingly, too much time is spent watching Ron and Hermione in will-they-won’t-they fall in love moments, while Ron tries to avert the obsessive attentions of Lavender Brown. Admittedly, Rupert Grint has really grown into the part of Ron, and makes a lovely comic antidote to the more dark aspirations of Harry. One of the film’s most amusing sequences sees Ron under an enchantment that makes him fall madly, and compulsively, in love with Romilda Vane. Hence Jim Broadbent’s Professor Horace Slughorn being mollycoddled by an overzealous, hormone-ravaged Ron Weasley as the aging Professor quickly tries to make a potion to cure him.

This is going on while Harry and Ron’s sister Ginny are locked in their own battle of the hormones. When they eventually kiss in a scene that is both touching and endearing, ultimately its only achievement is to distant the story further from the dark drama that is ensuing. You wonder how Alfonso Cuaron (director of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban) or Mike Newell (director of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire), who both found an agreeable artistic knack with the darkest aspect of their respective stories, would have approached the Half-Blood Prince. The aforementioned directors had better source material to work with but Yates seems overly content to play for laughs, only exposing exposition when he absolutely has to. By the time Harry and Dumbledore set off on a mission to destroy Voldermort, the would-be adventure appears out of nowhere and plays in much the same episodic nature as the rest of the film. Anyone new to the franchise would find it rather difficult to feel any sense of dread or foreboding for Harry and Dumbledore’s impending battle since the antagonist is presented throughout the film as a mere distraction. Voldermort, or his childhood persona Tom Riddle, is the man we are constantly told for who you do not speak his name. It seems the film took that too literally.

And that’s where Yates should have distanced the film from the source material. The book is essentially as much about Voldermort as it is about Harry Potter. Yet, Voldermort’s part in the film is limited. Indeed, Ralph Fiennes who plays Voldermort as an adult in previous instalments, isn’t seen at all. Likewise, the book’s most appealing real-time sequence is Harry and Dumbledore’s adventure together. This should have taken precedence and been given a bigger part to play in the movie. And yet, when the book gets it right, Yates gets it wrong. During one of the book’s final scenes Harry is frozen under his invisibility cloak and cannot help a friend in mortal danger. In the film, Yates has Harry simply stand and watch on Dumbledore’s orders. This seriously detracts from the scene, making what could have been a wonderfully dramatic and tension-filled finale into an ending that goes out with a whimper.

However, one thing that gets better with every Harry Potter film are the performances of the three leads. Emma Watson doesn’t have a great deal to do but the youthful ego of her Hermione Granger is confidently underplayed. Daniel Radcliffe will forever be the face of Harry Potter and here he finds little trouble moving between light-hearted comedy and dark-rooted drama. Rupert Grint, however, is definitely the stand out of the three, as he has really got to grips with the comedic side of his character. Michael Gambon is reliably on-form as Professor Dumbledore, Jim Broadbent enters the franchise with an assured performance as Slughorn, while Alan Rickman and Robbie Coltrane, although shamefully underused, are terrific in their roles. Helena Bonham Carter also stands out for her sadistic Bellatrix Lestrange, while Tom Felton as Draco excels as the chief baddie of the piece. He’s like a young Ernst Stavro Blofeld, learning his trade to conquer the world.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is probably the weakest instalment in the series. It very much relies on your knowledge of what has gone before, and fails to move the story forward, seeming more like a prelude to what is to come. The performances are fine, indeed, Tom Felton and Rupert Grint have never been as good, but the plot leaves a lot to be desired. You’ll wait a very long time for the action to get going and when it does it’s a bit of a letdown. However, the production design is in keeping with the quality of the rest of the series with some lavish locations, beautifully photographed townships and cityscapes (the London underground even looks fantastic), and Hogwarts is its magical best. Nicholas Hooper’s score is suitably grandiose, and the special-effects team of Tom Burke (Visual Effects Supervisor), Nick Dudman (creature and make-up effects), and John Richardson (special-effects supervisor) are worth mentioning for almost perfect creation of Rowling’s fictional world.

The sixth Harry Potter film isn’t without its highlights and there are a few surprises along the way but it doesn’t live up to the high standards set by Cuaron’s Prisoner of Azkaban or Newell’s Goblet of Fire. Ultimately, the Half-Blood Prince simply sets up the adventure to come, and instead of satisfying fans who’ve waited a long time for the sixth film to appear, it’ll leave them unfulfilled, their anticipation only heightened for film number seven.

Every character has an important role to play whether in the start or in the end of a particular story. Harry Potter is one sequence in which every role is well defined and emphasised, where everyone is created for a purpose, and as soon as their objective is completed, they disappear or meet their demise.

Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, is an important focus in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. His role throughout the story has been curious and questioning. He quite suddenly appears to fetch Harry from Privet Drive, at the start of the story, taking the liberty of taking him back to Hogwarts. Harry is quite concerned upon his act but later he discovers that it was just to take him on an errand in order to persuade an old Potions teacher, Horace Slughorn, to return to Hogwarts.

At first, Harry couldn’t understand his participation in the persuasion until the latter half of the story when he comes to know that the professor is withholding an important memory in his mind regarding Lord Voldemort, which Dumbledore wants to unravel. At Hogwarts, Harry is asked to take private classes with Dumbledore in which he learns in detail about the past of Voldemort using the thoughts of other people that were crucial and extremely important.

All through the memories, Dumbledore tells every important aspect of Voldemort’s past to Harry and they both visit each place that he has been to, through Pensieve. Horace Slughorn retrieved a memory of the conversation between him and Lord Voldemort regarding gaining immortality by forming Horcruxes. Hence, Dumbledore in this part wants Harry to locate Horcruxes and destroy them before ultimately killing the soul residing in his body.

According to the legend, six Horcruxes were formed among which is the Marvolo Gaunt’s ring that Dumbledore wore on his charred hand. He damaged his own hand in order to destroy one of the Horcrux. In order to destroy more Horcruxes, Dumbledore and Harry set out to a seaside cave where they expect to find one saved in a locket. In order to retrieve the locket, a potion had to be drunk before.

Dumbledore dares to drink the potion. As he drinks it, he starts screaming and seems as if he is mentally tortured along with becoming weaker. As he shouts for water, Harry fills the bowl with water from the Inferi-lake, which are activated and attack Harry and try to drag him in the lake as well. However, Dumbledore regains his consciousness and produces a fire lasso around them, which repels the Inferi.

As they return to Hogwarts from the cave, they face Death Eaters storming into Dumbledore’s office as they force Draco Malfoy to kill him. In the meantime, he casts a body-binding spell on Harry hidden underneath the Invisibility cloak. When Malfoy is unable to kill Dumbledore, Snape appears on the site and casts the killing curse on Dumbledore. After Dumbledore’s death, the preparations for his funeral begin. He was buried in velvet shroud in white sarcophagus tomb near the lake.

Dumbledore stayed to be the only professor who was buried in the school grounds. A lot of people from across the wizard world visit Hogwarts to pay salutations and regards to him. Overall, the role of Dumbledore remains to be an amusing part of the complete tale for the great Harry Potter fans.

Last week saw the Potter mania reaching a fever pitch!

Harry Potter and Deathly Hollows, the last adventure of the boy wizard, is hitting the book stores this week! The 5^th Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix, has opened in most of the countries in various parts of the world.

With the frenzy reaching an extent like this, it is nearly impossible to resist the urge to sneak into the world of good and bad wizards!

But if you happen to be one of the skeptic Muggles that couldn’t find time to surf through one of these most dramatic of J.K Rowling best sellers, yet can not escape the lure of two hours long revelry into the world of wizardry – the guide below can help you get a better grip over the world in and out of Hogwarts.

Here is a brief Order of the Phoenix glossary for those who may need them in the movie hall.

Order of the Phoenix: This is a group of wizards, led by Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore, dedicated to fighting evil Lord Voldemort and his followers.

Albus Dumbledore: The Headmaster of Hogwarts – the aged wizard that is believed to be the only one feared by Lord Voldemort.

Cornelius Fudge: Dark and corrupt, he heads the Ministry of Magic, and refuses to believe that Lord Voldemort has returned.

Dolores Umbridge: Originally an employee of Fudge and appointed as High Inquisitor of Hogwarts, she refuses to teach her students how to perform Defense spell. Umbridge openly dislikes Harry, and eventually bans him from the Gryffindor Quidditch team.

Sirius Black: He is the godfather of Harry Potter and lives in number twelve, Grimmauld Place, London: The headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix. Like Dumbledore, he is also dedicated to fighting evil Lord Voldemort and his followers.

Daily Prophet: The wizard newspaper

O.W.L.s: Ordinary Wizarding Level examinations

Occlumency: The lessons Harry Potter was advised to take for clearing his mind against invasions by Lord Voldemort.

Death Eaters: Voldemort’s associates creating havoc under the thumb of the Lord of evil world.

Dementors: The keepers of Azkaban, they can suck all feelings of happiness out of a person.

The above glossary is sure to provide you the perfect backdrop when you are busy soaking up into Harry Potter’s heroic acts amidst shattering glasses and swirling dust, in the dark movie hall. Besides the increasingly attractive Daniel Radcliff, Emma Watson (playing the role of Hermione) proves to be a treat for your eyes with her growing glamour and beauty.

With the release of The Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix is at your doorstep, the whole world seems to share the passion to the point of hysteric frenzy! In the mean time, have command over your nerves and let’s have some peppy talks such as how it feels to be kissed by the King of Wizardry!

You will be hard pressed to find a teenage girl who has never visualized herself sharing passionate kisses with Harry Potter!

By the way, how it might feel to be kissed by Harry Potter? It might be exciting. It might be exhilarating, it might be scintillating! Katie Leung, who is playing Cho Chang in the film, is the best person to tell you how it exactly feels like sharing a kiss with Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe).

As you know, Cho Chang is the teenage wizard’s first girl friend with whom he shares his first kiss. As such, it was not going to be in any case a perfect smooch—but at the same time it had to look sweet on screen—sweet enough to remind anybody of the first kiss of his/her life!

And at least Katie believes that she and Radcliff have done it to the perfection by making it turn out to be pretty awkward, but at the same time romantic. They decided not to go for much practice for the scene, so that it did not appear to be impeccable.

How did the shooting of the sequence go? Katie says she was made nervous by the crew of the film that kept on reminding her about the scene every five minutes.

But the actual filming was not as bad. It took some twenty takes to get it done to the director’s satisfaction—but it is rather pretty common for any scene. For Leung, the whole episode turned out to be quite funny—- being monitored by a group of cameramen while you are trying to concentrate on an act as sensational as kissing.

When asked about her experience about facing the reaction of the jealous girls all over the world, Leung says that her female fans actually congratulated her on her extraordinary experience than bombarding her with hate mails.

But the pretty co-star of Radcliff seemed to be floored by the question as to what she thinks her parent would think when they catch her in that scene! Leung says, she would prefer to watch the reactions on their faces as they watch the lip-lock scene on the screen.

Well, it is now your turn to discover how it all went—-how did the young wizard take his first stride into the world of manhood!

Full story: Yahoo

“IMAX Corporation and Warner Bros. Pictures today announced that select scenes of the IMAX DMR(R) version of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix will be digitally converted into An IMAX 3D Experience(R).”

Full press release.

Both the 3D and the regular versions will be released in theaters on July 13, 2007.

Secret schemes! Bloddy battles! A first kiss! Go behind the scenes of this July’s eagerly awaited ”Harry Potter” movie, and mull over seven key talking points

You’ll find five photos from the film and interviews with Daniel Radcliffe and director David Yates.

Read more at EW

Bloomsbury publishers in London first published Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone on June 26, 1997. The film was eventually made into a successful film of the same name, and it still stands as the most popular of the series’ books. At present date, it appears that Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone has sold an estimated 17 million copies in the United States, and as much as 70 million copies worldwide. Here is a brief summary of the basic plot of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

The beginnings of the Harry Potter story opens with the wizards Albus Dumbledore and Minerva McGonagall meeting at a certain address-Number Four, Privet Drive, Little Winging, a suburb of Surrey. They have met there to discuss recent events that have occurred in the wizarding universe. It appears that Lord Voldemort, who has a reputation as one of the most fearsome and powerful of all the dark wizards in recent history, has been finally defeated. Sadly, two wizards have died as a result of this bearing. The two final victims were James and Lily Potter, who are the parents of young Harry. Harry is an infant when his parents die at the hands of Lord Voldemort, and he has somehow survived this legendary encounter, save for a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead. For this, young Harry becomes a legend in the world of wizards.

Dumbledore wants young Harry to be raised far from the attention and scrutiny that this event has caused, so he is left to be cared for by his only living relatives, his Aunt Petunia Dursley and her family, which includes bumbling husband Vernon and Harry’s spoiled cousin Dudley. The Dursley’s do not care for the magical world, and they keep Harry’s heritage hid from him. However, not long from Harry’s eleventh birthdays, owls begin to deliver letters to the Dursley household that are addressed for Harry which are withheld from him by the Dursley’s. Finally, Hagrid the Hogwarts gamekeeper delivers the letters to Harry. The letters are Harry’s official invitation to attend the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Hagrid introduces Harry to the magical world. Finally, after learning much about his secret magic past, Harry makes his way off to Hogwarts. On the way he meets Ron Weasley, who will become his best friend. He also meets Hermione Granger, who appears to be an annoying know-it-all, but who will become one of his closest friends.

Once at Hogwarts, the new students are sorted into one of four houses. Harry and his new friends are chosen for Gryffindor house. At Hogwarts, a three-headed dog named Fluffy guards a secret trapdoor. Harry, Ron, and Hermione speculate that it  must protect the legendary philosopher’s stone, which is thought to produce eternal life. The three friends decide to save the stone from imminent theft, and they find that the seemingly innocent Professor Quirrell is trying to steal the stone. It appears that Lord Voldemort’s spirit has taken over Quirrell. Harry and his friends confront Quirrell and during the confrontation, Quirrell dies. Voldemort’s spirit flees the scene. Harry suffers minor injuries during the confrontation, and as he recovers, Dumbledore informs him that his mother died in trying to protect Harry. It appears that his mother’s pure protective love has made him immune from the evil spells of Voldemort. Dumbledore also tells Harry that the stone will be destroyed in order to prevent future threat.

The film rights for the Harry Potter book series were first sold in 1999. JK Rowling agreed to sell the film rights for the book series to Warner Bros. for a reported $1.9 million dollars. Some analysts and fans have speculated about the terms of the deal, but it has been widely reported that Rowling’s only major concern was that the principal actors cast be British. For a long time, it appeared that Steven Spielberg would helm the first film version of a Harry Potter book, but the deal eventually fizzled out. It appears that Spielberg wanted the first book in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, to be turned into an animated voice with the voice of Haley Joel Osment as Harry Potter. Later, Spielberg would comment that he withdrew from the project because it did not prove enough of an artistic challenge to him. Some speculated that Spielberg dropped out from the project because he did not want to contend with Rowling’s demands, but both deny this rumor.

Finally, it was agreed that Chris Columbus would direct at least the first two pictures in the film series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. The third film, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was directed by Alfonso Cuaron. The fourth, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, was directed by Mike Newell. The fifth book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, was directed by David Yates but has not yet been released. It has been rumored that Rowling’s first choice director had been Terry Gilliam, but this did not work out.

An exhaustive search was held to cast the Harry Potter films. Finally, the casting calls produced the three leads in 2000. The main actors cast from these open calls—Daniel Radcliff, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint, were virtual unknowns at the time, but they have since been lauded for their sincere portrayals of Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasley, respectively. It is believed that part of the charm of the films has been due to the casting of several important character portrayals by actors such as Robbie Coltrane as Hagrid, Richard Harris and Michael Gambon as Albus Dumbledore, and Maggie Smith as Professor Minerva McGonagall.

Some fans also believe that part of the magic and fun of seeing the Harry Potter universe up on the big screen is that the film was scripted by Steve Kloves with help from Rowling herself. All films have used the latest in special effects and computer generated imaging technology to create a wondrous universe that is not quite like anything else seen before on film. The look and feel of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry has made readers feel as if the book has come alive on a larger and more vibrant canvas than could ever be depicted on the page.