Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince

It is getting to the stage where we need to start these films with 'previously on Harry Potter...' because it is hard to keep up for those who haven't read the books.

One thing I will say is that Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince is a lot better than its predecessor, the Order Of The Phoenix.
What strikes you as we get towards the end of the series is how much the three leads have grown up - they really looked like little kids in the first film and now they are well and truly young adults.

Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe), in his sixth year at Hogwarts, takes a potions class run by the mysterious Professor Horace Slughorn at the encouragement of Dumbledore. Potions aren't really Harry's thing.

He acquires a potions text book that carries the writing 'property of the Half-Blood Prince' and seems to carry the secrets that the standard texts don't - Harry subsequently outdoes everyone else, including a frustrated Hermoine (Emma Watson).

Meanwhile, the deliciously ambiguous Professor Snape (again wonderfully played by Alan Rickman) takes an oath to oversee Draco Malfoy as he performs a task for the dark lord (Voldemort).

Elsewhere, love seems to be in the air as Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) is pursued by girls after starring in a Quidditch game much to Hermoine's disgust.

In what has been described as quite a dark film there is an awful lot of comedy going on and that really lifts this instalment. Particularly the scene where Harry drinks a liquid luck potion and seems to wander around in a state of inflated good feeling, and he wanders down to visit Hagrid who is mourning the death of his super-tarantula. Weird and very amusing.

I'm happy to say the Half-Blood Prince is a massive improvement on the last film but not quite up there with the high standard set by the first four. A 7.5 out of 10 and we head to the two-part finale interested in how they are going to do it.