Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)

The Harry Potter series continues to amaze me. Unfortunately that's not a positive statement, because it amazes me that the series continues to get more uneventful and dare I say boring, yet the films consistently receive greater reviews from critics and viewers alike. Maybe it's due to the fact that I've never read the books because obviously this seems to make a two and a half hour long teenage soap-opera more enjoyable. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince marks the sixth and almost final film (the final film will be two separate films) of the Harry Potter "saga".

It's unfortunate that it lacks much of anything resembling the prior films with the Half-Blood Prince being turned into the Harry Potter triangle of love, with way too much time being taken up with Harry falling for Ron's sister, and the overabundance of unspoken love between Hermione and Ron. If I wanted to watch a romance or romantic comedy I would not be turning to the Harry Potter series, so not only is it pointless but it's given way too much attention in the film which seems to be seriously grasping at straws. Thrown into the mix is the progression of Draco Malfoy finally attempting to step up and become the villain he's hinted at becoming over the past six years, although it really never adds up to much in the end and becomes more of a filler between the heavily romantic themes of the story. And finally Harry continues his search into the mysterious life of Tom Riddle "aka" Voldemort, in hopes of finding some clues within his past that might help to defeat him.

To me the Harry Potter films have grown consistently more talkative and less action oriented over the last three films. At an average of two and a half hours they've always been too long for my tastes but it grows especially noticeable when there's nothing but the characters mumbling on. The first three entries had a nice balance of action, fantasy, drama and humor, but the last three seem to have cut out the action almost entirely, the Half-Blood Prince had only about ten minutes of action or anything resembling it. The only positive thing I can say about the last three films is they have appeared to have kept up with the age of the actors, and have definitely become more dark and grown up, but in doing so it seems the series has sacrificed the adventure that truly made the first three entertaining.

Overall, I'm quite confused on how the majority seem to believe the Half-Blood Prince is by far the "best" in the series, in my opinon it's not only the worst but also the least memorable and the least eventful. If the death of a main character, and coming out of a couple "evil characters" (which was no surprise), is what makes this film the best then why does it need to take almost three hours to do it? So much of this film could have been edited down to under two hours that at least it would have made the film drag less and possibly salvaged it. In the end, the Harry Potter series appears to be straying further away from the balance that made it so enjoyable, I fully welcome a darker storyline and more drama but if it means the sacrifice of adventure and action then I don't believe it's worth it, frankly the drama alone in this series isn't that great.

5/10