Checking out the 'New Moon' Competition: 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince'

July 15, 5:01 AMTwilight ExaminerAmanda Bell

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In the spirit of seeing The Twilight Saga: New Moon take its rightful place among the best of 2009’s films, it has been an ephemeral tradition in this column to take a look at some of the year’s competition.

That said, no greater companion to New Moon exists upon the list of heavily anticipated films for this year than Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince.

After joining hundreds of teeming fans in seeing the film on opening night, it is quite clear why that is.

As the theater darkens and the crowd silences, the screen takes to its ominous gray thundercloud introduction, and something about those first few theme song notes that has the full attention of every mind in the room.

Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince picks up almost directly where Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix left off – Sirius Black has died, and the state of the wizarding world is amiss as Lord Voldemort runs free and the Ministry of Magic is helpless in putting an end to his reign of terror. Now, it is Harry Potter’s job to assist Professor Dumbledore in taking the reins of the necessary destruction of Voldemort to save the fragile balance that exists between magic and muggledom.

But it is not all stormy in Harry Potter And The Half Blood Prince. The sophomoric bickering, tidy love triangles, and effects of certain potions (as portrayed by Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, the suddenly-so-statuesque Bonnie Wright, and newcomers Freddie Stroma and Jessie Cave particularly) prove to be a light-hearted addition and interlude between the otherwise quite dramatic and looming conflict felt most strongly by Harry and Dumbledore.

In its darkest moments, the film was spot-on, faithfully executing a great number of the most riveting points of scenery between the characters. Particularly, Tom Felton delivers a clean and authoritative performance as the much-conflicted Draco Malfoy.
Additional cast members such as Jim Broadbent and Hero Fiennes-Tiffin really bring something special to the film with the portrayal of newly introduced characters Professor Slughorn and Tom Riddle at Age 11, respectively. While Broadbent brings a hilarity and confusion to a rather comical character, Fiennes-Tiffin brings a sympathetic evil into his role as Riddle – a part which would, arguably, be one of the more difficult to bring to life.

It is Michael Gambon and Alan Rickman who take the cake in this film, though. Call it a bit of sappy and susceptible reaction, but Gambon’s performance was both spiriting and so crushing all at once. Rickman, too, brings us possibly his best Snape yet. That stalky, apprehensive elusiveness we’re so used to is multiplied exponentially in Rickman’s finest hour in this character.

Perhaps most impressively, the special effects were, as has become custom with the Harry Potter series, a complete step above the rest – a feat which might be thought impossible by this point.

That said, there were also some noteworthy deviances from the book series that even the least careful readers would catch on to. Some choice distinctions were of little significance, while others were paramount. For instance, my favorite scene in the book, and one which was not included in the film, was the exchange between Harry and Dumbledore in which he pledges his allegiance with a bit of choice phraseology (“Dumbledore man”) to Dumbledore as against the wishes of the ministry – a decision which was, for Dumbledore, very touching (or so he said). The entire conflict with the ministry, for the most part, was rather hastily grazed by.

Otherwise, the film was that rare bit of excellence that we’ve been fortunate to see so often from this franchise. The vision offered by David Yates is clear, but nothing is lost in translation as yet another beautiful film has been brought to life from an even more lovely book.

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