"Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince" creates great box office potential

July 15, 5:15 AMHonolulu Movie ExaminerKamuela Kaneshiro

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Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Rating 4 out of 5.

This review is just based off the film, this review does not serve as a comparison between the film and book.  I have not read the book but I am a fan of the Harry Potter series (heck, people even say I look like him when I wear my glasses).

Continuing off where the last film ended, Harry Potter continues to explore not only the world of magic, but with the help of Hermione, Ron and other students of Hogwarts, Harry slowly starts discovering his destiny.

The entire cast once again returns, while all the students are looking a lot older, I feel that this is necessary since recasting the entire film would ruin the series.  While many point out that Harry is the one that looks the oldest, I must say that in this installment Ron (Rupert Grint) seems like the one that was kept back a few years. 

Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) does a good job as Harry, also Hermione (Emma Watson) really shows her acting prowess in this installment.  But once again the spotlight was always on Snape (Alan Rickman) who plays every moment of screen time with perfection.

Something interesting has occurred with this film that might scare off some of Harry's charm on the box office.  Due to contractual agreements between IMAX theaters and Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince will not be in IMAX for a bit.  This will not only affect the box office take of this latest Harry Potter adventure, but it will bum out fans like myself because we will not be able to enjoy the film in our venue of choice.

While things may seem rosy on the outside, I do have my issues with this film.  I felt that it was very long and drawn out.  The scenes in the beginning seemed to start, drag out and end much longer than needed.  But we do finally start getting a sense for the overall magic world in this series, even though it was a little weird seeing the "kids" being allowed to openly drink alcohol.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince is on the darker side, younger children might not like it because they might get bored and if they are not familiar with the book, they might be confused.  Harry Potter is growing up and due to this, his appeal to the younger audiences might be fading which is to be expected along with the subject matter.