+ Most Undeserved Hit Movie of the Year
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| The three young wizard chums are with Dumbledore in an unusually grey and hostile-looking London on this poster for David Yates' Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince |
Harry must help Dumbledore extract teacher Slughorn's knowledge of Voldemort's childhood, and he and pal Ron are also occupied quite a bit with some young ladies in this the 6th Potter movie, in which Draco, Snape and Bellatrix are villainous.
David Yates (The Legend of Tarzan (2016)) returns as Potter director, after also helming its preceding chapter, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007), with a script by Steve Kloves (Wonder Boys (2000)), adapting the same-titled 2005 novel by J.K. Rowling (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016), screenwriter).
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is an extremely dull film. It has an overly simple visual concept of an often greater distance from the camera to the action mixed with many closeups and a color palette that continually cultivates brown, grey and dark tones. It's a very cold serving, as if someone intentionally conjured up brooding, grey clouds for us to stare at for 2½ hour while still insisting that it was broad family entertainment.
The many scenes that imply some romance never lead to the sex that the series now so obviously lacks, its characters having now clearly passed the age for their maturity into this natural activity. Instead of this, our now fully grown wizard trio, (youngest of whom is Emma Watson (Beauty and the Beast (2017)), who was 19 at the film's release), carry on pitifully in this very long and very thinly plotted cup of bitter, English tea.
Among the few mitigating elements are Jim Broadbent (Valiant (2005)) and Maggie Smith's (Ladies in Lavender (2004)) exquisite performances as two Hogwarts teachers.
SPOILER Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince at least seems to accidentally end on an honest note: Ron states in conclusion that "all was for nothing", before an ugly CGI-rendered bird flies away in the horizon. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince truly is a futile piece of work, and a puzzling audience phenomenon.
Related posts:
David Yates/The Harry Potter franchise: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 (2010) - Harry's abysmally dour and long penultimate chapter
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
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2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
Cost: 250 mil. $ (+ an estimated 155 mil. $ on marketing and distribution costs)
Box office: 934.4 mil. $
= Big hit
[Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince premiered 6 July (Tokyo, Japan) and runs 153 minutes. Shooting took place from September 2007 - May 2008 in Norway, Ireland, Scotland and elsewhere in the UK. The film opened #1 to a 77.8 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent 4 consecutive weeks in the top 5 (#1-#2-#2-#4) and grossed 301.9 mil. $ (32.3 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 84 mil. $ (9 %) and Japan with 83.7 mil. $ (9 %). It broke records for best midnight showing, highest single-day worldwide gross (104 mil. $) and biggest ever five-day opening worldwide (394.7 mil. $). It was the 2nd highest-grossing film of 2009, behind James Cameron's masterpiece Avatar, but only the 5th highest-grossing Potter movie, and if the extraordinary marketing and distribution costs are taken into account, the film would actually rank as a minor flop theatrically. Roger Ebert gave the film a 3/4 star review, translating to two notches better than this one. Potter himself, Daniel Radcliffe (Trainwreck (2015)) has said in a 2014 interview that the film is, for him, " hard to watch", since he is "just not very good in it." He has also revealed that he was drunk during shooting of some of the latter Potter films. The film was nominated for the Best Cinematography Oscar (Bruno Delbonnel), which it lost to Mauro Fiore for Avatar. It was also nominated for 2 BAFTAs, won an AFI award and a slew of other awards. It sold millions of DVDs and Blu-ray, but a gross figure for this is not available. The financing forces involved were happy with Yates to the degree that he got the job of directing the last two films, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 (2010) and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (2011). He also got the gig of directing Potter spin-off Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016) and is even announced to direct that franchise's following four slated sequels! Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is certified fresh at 84 % with a 7.1 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
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