Published: July 14, 2009 07:43 pm      

Latest installment of Potter series has high expectations

Harry Potter has kept his fans waiting for two years, the longest school break they have had to endure for a new movie adventure about the teen wizard. It’s been worth the wait.

According to the Associated Press, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” the sixth movie in the fantasy franchise based on J.K. Rowling’s books, is the franchise’s best so far, blending rich drama and easy camaraderie among the actors with the visual spectacle that until now has been the real star of the series.

The hocus-pocus of it all nearly takes a back seat to the story and characters this time, and the film is the better for that. It doesn’t skimp on the Quidditch action, sorcery duels or occult pyrotechnics, but those are simply part of the show, not the main attraction.

Previous installments played out in a supernatural bubble bearing little connection to our ordinary little Muggle world. “Half-Blood Prince” brims with authentic people and honest interaction — hormonal teens bonding with great humor, heartache that will resonate with anyone who remembers the pangs of first love.

Drop the magic act, and Hogwarts could be any school of self-absorbed geeks, jocks, popular kids and outcasts trying to maneuver through the day. Even the class bad boy provides insight into the behavior of bullies.

“Half-Blood Prince” escalates the peril for Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) and his best pals, Hermione Granger (Emma Watson) and Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint), while giving the threesome that first collaborated as prepubescent kids their best platform yet to show their maturing acting chops.

David Yates, who made 2007’s “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” returns to direct, his deepening confidence and comfort with the Potter realm on display throughout.

This time, Yates stays true to the Rowling recipe yet infuses the film with a freshness and energy that makes it seem like a new start, not the stale old chapter six it could have been.

For many area Harry Potter fans, this is good news after most fans were left disappointed with the “Phoenix” movie, which happens to be the longest book in the Potter series but was the shortest film in the movie series.

“I’m really hoping this movie stays more true to the book than the last movie did,” said Courtney McNeely, a 16-year-old drama student at Vidor High School. “The ‘Half-blood Prince’ is my favorite book and it’s when my favorite character, Draco Malfoy, really comes into his own.”

Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton), is Potter’s bullying tormentor, who is now a torn and troubled youth himself as an agent of Voldemort.

Though the movie drags a bit toward the end, screenwriter Steve Kloves — who adapted the first four books and returns after a one-film hiatus — generally keeps the intricate plot rolling breathlessly.

“I felt the last movie could have explored more things in detail,” McNeely added. “It could have shown more interaction with Harry and his god-father, Sirius Black, or even expanded on the fight between Dumbledore and Voldemort. That fight was one of the more intense parts of the book, but it could have been better in the last movie.”

“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” will be shown at the Showbiz Cinema in Orange at 11:40 a.m., 2:50 p.m., 6 p.m. and 9:05 p.m., today.

Harry’s big challenge this school year is a clandestine assignment by Hogwarts headmaster Dumbledore (Michael Gambon), who enlists his protégé to retrieve a critical memory that new Professor Horace Slughorn (Jim Broadbent) possesses about young Tom Riddle, the future dark Lord Voldemort.

The usual teen high jinks and crises lighten the story with plenty of laughs. Romantic entanglements — which have gradually preoccupied Harry, Hermione, Ron and other classmates as they stumbled into puberty — burst out like a wicked case of acne this year.

Ron is dating bubble-headed bimbo Lavender Brown (Jessie Cave), putting Hermione into a jealous snit. Harry’s got his own love triangle, falling for Ron’s sister, Ginny (Bonnie Wright), who’s dating another student.

Visual-effects technology definitely have caught up with Rowling’s imagination — and the filmmakers have some rowdy fun with their splendid images.

Radcliffe, Watson and Grint have lived these roles for so long — almost half their lives — that Harry, Hermione and Ron seem like second nature to them. Whether their acting careers flourish after “Harry Potter” or not, they have left an impressive little body of work with these three characters alone, developing them into full-blooded youths that feel real despite their fantastical surroundings.

Director Yates is also making the two-part adaptation of the seventh and final book, the movies due out in November 2010 and July 2011. “Half-Blood Prince” should leave fans as eager for those last movies as a high-school junior is for graduation day.



The Associated Press contributed to this article.