The much anticipated sixth Harry Potter film is finally here and its arrival has caused a huge wave of excitement among cinema goers. As an avid fan, I was raring to give it a glowing review but, sadly it doesn’t quite live up to the hype and doesn’t quite compare to the book either.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince sees our young wizard facing more peril than ever as Voldemort is on the rise and the magical world are under threat. Harry has to take on a task of great importance for Dumbledore if they are to stand any chance of defeating the Dark Lord but, this proves to be no easy feat.
Meanwhile, schoolboy bully Draco Malfoy has a mission of equal significance to carry out for Voldemort as he sneaks around the castle under the ever watchful eye of ex-potions teacher Severus Snape.
Amid all this, love is in the air and the hormones are raging as Ron catches the eye of the obsessive Lavender Brown (much to the disapproval and annoyance of Hermione) and Harry becomes ever more smitten with his best friends sister Ginny Weasley.
There is a lot of humour throughout this film, providing a good balance to the darker aspects of the plot and the characters and their chemistry are all brilliant, as expected.
However, there is a general feeling that much of the film is very drawn out with not a great deal being explained and then suddenly towards the end we are hit in the face with the important action bits, which seem to be over just as quickly as they began.
Understandably, a lot of the content from the book has been changed or omitted but, this does have a negative effect on the film as the end product does not provide the impact it could have.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is still an excellent film, and one of the best of the summer but, it does not live up to its full potential and fails to deliver the way the book did.
