Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince

I think we found the new champion.

When a movies is so good that I watched it twice before writing the review, clearly there's something I loved. I do genuinely feel The Half-Blood Prince is the best of the Harry Potter series and it'll be tough to top with only two film left. There's simulatenously a lot that happens in this movie and yet very little that happens, I doubt it could properly be summarized but basically Harry is back at Hogwarts mainly helping Dumbledore learn more about Tom Riddle's past and a certain type of magic that keeps him for all intensive purposes immortal, and slowly working through this mystery while doing classes, doing the romance thing again (less gross this time I swear), and keeping an eye on Malfoy who has taken a strange turn. I loved every moment on screen, this definitely makes the ending to Goblet Of Fire look like a Disney film, it's the darkest of the series and not just in content. The whole film is very darkly lit, there's a lot of shadows, and muted colors that compliment the film incredibly so. Though I do highly recommend you watch it in a dark room. I heard tale that Daniel hated his performance in this movie but I think he did quite well, granted he puts up with a bit of stuff in this movie but the performance is strong and it's nice to see Harry one last time as a happy and fun student before the real adventure begins. But I have no issue saying this film is built on the supporting cast. We get so much Dumbledore in this particular movie, whereas in previous films he might have 2 or 3 small scenes but he's in this quite a lot, with Michael Gambon giving his best performance with humor, wisdom, and that unresistable likableness. Tom Felton same story, few scenes here and there but given more attention and puts in a strong performance as Draco, and I have to say I want to know what happens next for him. We get Jim Broadbent (still best dad, sorry Mando) as a Slytherin potions teacher who despite his house is a kind, considerate, and respectable wizard and Jim does great work like always. Alan Rickman, gahd bless it Snape finally gets to be the DATDA teacher and we don't even get one scene of him teaching. And that is the true tragedy of Severus Snape (it's a joke Potterheads relax), but every word that man speaks is like a magnetic force and I'm just sucked in even more with the story and characters. Though I must admit even after all this time, I always still can't believe that ending. Every time! Every time it gets me! But I know what happens, and it doesn't soften the impact! Could you imagine if it just went to credits after that cut to black? People would have lost their marbles in that theater, ohhh my God how earth shattering would that ending have been. But I know they couldn't have, we got to set up the next movie I know. But come on! You know what's really funny? If you asked me like...5 or even 10 years ago what happens in The Half-Blood Prince I couldn't tell you a damn thing. For some reason I just never remembered this movie as much as the others, the only things I remembered were, Ron gets a yandere girlfriend, something about an Unbreakable Vow, spooky scary skeletons in a cave, oh yeah the water trial thing, annnnnd....the shocking end. No Bridget's dad, no Quidditch, no cool Tom Riddle flashbacks, no Snape (HERESY!), no potions book, or that really screwed up shot of Malfoy just bleeding to death I mean Jesus God! Why? I. Don't. Know. I even saw it in theaters, in fact it was a tradition that my mom and me, regardless of whether it was a school day or not, we saw the Harry Potter movies from Chamber Of Secrets onward opening day. Every one of them, so apparently my memory was worse then than it was now. Somehow. Oh there I go again rhyming. I gotta wrap this up, bottom line best film of the series, 8.5/10, 4 stars would give 5 if I could on that scale, wonderful movie and I loved it! Until next time.