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Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is a 2009 fantasy-adventure film based on the novel of the same name by J. K. Rowling. It is the sixth film in the popular Harry Potter film series. It is directed by David Yates, the director of the fifth film, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. David Heyman and David Barron are producing the film, and Steve Kloves, screenwriter of the first four films, has returned as screenwriter for this film. Filming began on 24 September 2007, and the film was originally planned for a UK and North American release on 21 November 2008, but on 14 August 2008, it was announced that the release date for the film was to be delayed to 17 July 2009, a date later changed to 15 July 2009. Unlike the previous film, the sixth film will not be simultaneously released in regular cinemas and IMAX 3-D, due to a Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen several week commitment. The film will instead be released in IMAX 3D on 29 July, two weeks after its original release. But, in Mexico, India, and the Philippines it will be releasing in both IMAX and IMAX 3-D together on 16 July; in Scotland, it will be released on July 17 in those formats.


Starring

1. Daniel Radcliffe
2. Michael Gambon
3. Jim Broadbent
4. Emma Watson
5. Rupert GrintAlan Rickman
6. Tom Felton
7. Helena Bonham Carter
8. Maggie Smith

Directed by David Yates

There is still magic, but it all has dramatic purpose – and much of it points to the final two films, in which youthful wizard Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) and his nemesis Voldemort, the Dark Lord, will engage in decisive battle.



Emboldened by his impending return, Voldemort's airborne henchthingies, the Death Eaters, have stepped up their attacks, including muggles (humans) amongst their prey. An early scene resembling a terrorist attack sees pedestrians on London's Millennium Bridge sprinting for safety as the Death Eaters ravage the structure. Not even such heavenly preserves as Diagon Alley and Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry are safe from Voldemort's minions, who now include a fully engaged Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton), who considers himself the Dark Lord's opposite to Harry's status as the "Chosen One" among wizards.



The annual train journey to Hogwarts, in which Harry and pals Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) and Hermione Granger (Emma Watson) head for the start of their sixth year, takes a violent turn as well-meaning subterfuge leads to a brutal beating. The students arrive at Hogwarts to discover they must now pass through a metal detector, since repeated Death Eater attacks against the school have forced the need for greater security. Storm clouds real and metaphorical hover over the proceedings, which returning director David Yates and screenwriter Steve Kloves have fashioned as more of a mystery than previous instalments, and with many more plot threads.

The picture begins as an adult detective story, as Hogwarts patriarch Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) whisks Harry from a sexy muggle encounter (what a trip that would have been!) back into the fantasy realm to investigate what appears to be a savage Death Eater attack. "Wands out, Harry!" Dumbledore warns. But it's a set-up to meet an important new character in the franchise: Horace Slughorn (Jim Broadbent, perfectly cast), a former professor of potions at Hogwarts who taught Tom Riddle (played by Hero Fiennes-Tiffen and Frank Dillane at different ages), the troubled student who became Lord Voldemort.

Dumbledore convinces Slughorn to return to Hogwarts, hoping that Harry – whom Slughorn is star-struck by – can cajole or con him into giving up important information about Riddle that could lead to Voldermort's undoing. Harry is now Dumbledore's adult sidekick rather than his boyish protégé, an important development in the saga. But it's frustrating to see Radcliffe still playing more boy than man when the time comes for Harry to whip out his wand. You'd think that five years of training would have made him less of a fumbler.

There are many more developments in the tale, including further elucidation into the puzzling motives of Severus Snape (Alan Rickman), now promoted to teacher of defence against the dark arts. He's obviously being primed for greater revelations to come, as is Voldemort's female consort Bellatrix Lestrange (Helena Bonham Carter), whose violent urges take a fiery turn this time.



Yates and Kloves have done a commendable job of distilling the essence of Rowling's mammoth text and maintaining control over plot complications (including the identity of the titular Half-Blood Prince) that could befuddle anyone not fully versed in Potter lore. Rowling and her dutiful film deputies have kept pace with their core audience, most of whom are now into their late teens and 20s, and who are facing some of the same life issues as Harry and his career, albeit more of the earthbound variety. The same Potterphiles who went with their parents to see the film series' debut in 2001 are now old enough to attend tonight's midnight screenings on their own or with their pals.

Yet despite the many pluses of The Half-Blood Prince, it's unlikely to become a series favourite for many people, at least in the celluloid format. Harry's development as a wizard and as a hero remains gallingly slow – he often gapes rather than reacts – and the story's one major development is bizarrely treated almost as an after-thought. Think of the film as a stepping-stone to greater drama to come, much like The Two Towers in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and heed Slughorn's words of caution: "These are mad times we live in, mad!"