In his penultimate year at Hogwarts, Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) begins a tentative romance with the sister of his best friend, falls under the wing of new Potions teacher Horace Slughorn (Jim Broadbent), discovers a helpful textbook that once belonged to someone dubbed “the Half-Blood Prince,” and learns that headmaster Albus Dumbleodre (Michael Gambon) has uncovered the evil Lord Volemort’s insidious plan to achieve immortality.

CRITIQUE

Something went wrong here. This movie was supposed to be a step up from The Order of the Phoenix. Returning director David Yates was supposed to grow as a visualist, while screenwriter Steve Kloves, who’d adapted the first four books but had handed over the fifth to someone else, was supposed to once again demonstrate his skills as streamlining J.K. Rowling’s massive tomes into workable scripts. But only the former happened.

Despite some pacing problems, Yates’s work here is more stylized and assured than his helming of Phoenix (it looks as if he studied Alfonso Cuarón’s Prisoner of Azkaban work, which was definitely a smart move), but Kloves seems to have forgotten everything he’d learned back in the early half of the decade. Rather than distilling the book, he simply made a muddled patchwork of scenes, characters, and plotlines. It’s almost as if the copy of the book he worked from was missing a couple hundred pages, resulting in a script full of unanswered questions.

This is the first (or maybe second) time I’ve felt I couldn’t have followed the plot of the movie had I not been familiar with the book. Get this--the significance of the second part of the movie’s title is never explained. We learn who the Half-Blood Prince is, but we don’t learn how he came by that moniker or why it’s significant. But we learn who he is in a lame way, and why he reveals himself isn’t clear, nor is why he chooses to reveal himself. How does he know Harry has the textbook? It’s clear in the novel, but the movie does nothing to make a connection.

I know a lot of people have read the books, but the filmmakers can’t assume everyone who sees the movies has. (If the number of people who read was anywhere close to the number who go to the movies, the publishing industry wouldn’t be fighting for its life.) And I’m not saying the movies have to be slavishly faithful to the texts. After all, the first two movies in the series were, and they’re by far the weakest.

But regardless of how faithful to it’s a source a movie is, the storytelling has to be clear, and here it’s not. This tale is essentially the second act of the series’ third act. There’s a lot going on in the book, but it’s still essentially a transitional story, setting up plotlines that will be resolved in the finale.

The big problem with Kloves’s script is that he affords far too much space to the plotlines that aren’t the most important. It’s been obvious from the very beginning that two of the characters are going to end up together, but the movie gives more than a third of its running time over to setting this up. (It also doesn’t help that a new supporting player turns in a fairly horrible performance.) That in turn shortchanges the material dealing with Dumbledore’s discovery of Voldemort’s plot. And given that so much of the final book involves the resolution of this plotline (and Kloves and Yates were fully aware of this before scripting for this movie even began), it’s strange that this plays out like something of an afterthought.

That brings me to the movie’s other major failing, which is the lack of impact of the major event that occurs during the climax. Regardless of whether or not you know it’s coming (and even if you haven’t read the book you should know it’s coming, as it’s an integral part of your standard hero’s journey), it should be a devastating turn of events, the sort of thing that simultaneously kicks you in the gut and punches you in the heart. But here it just sort of happens. You see it and you don’t care. It’s a whimper, not a bang. It almost doesn’t matter, and making it matter is one thing on which everyone involved should have concentrated.

I’ve probably made the movie sound worse than it is, but it’s not bad, it’s just disappointingly mediocre. But were it not for the cast, there’s a good chance it would be less than mediocre. Gambon, as I’ve always suspected he would, finally comes completely into his own as Dumbledore. (As good as he was early on, I can’t imagine Richard Harris pulling off what he would’ve been required to do here.)

The three leads still deliver (especially Rupert Grint), although why Emma Watson is somewhat marginalized here is beyond me. And Broadbent is simply fantastic, an absolutely perfect fit for his role. The fact that he, Imelda Staunton, and Bill Nighy are all slated to be in the final two movies is enough to obliterate whatever reservations I may have.

THE VIDEO

The 2.40:1/1080p transfer--encoded with VC-1 onto a 50 GB disc--is, much like the movie itself, something of a disappointment. Like Order of the Phoenix, this is very, very dark movie; but whereas that movie was dominated by deep blacks, vivid primaries, and polished surfaces, this one is dominated by soft sepia tones, sickly yellows, and blacks that are either impenetrable or murky.

A few of the nighttime scenes are almost impossible to make out (such as when the Death Eater or whatever it is slams into the protective field around the school), and darker interiors suffer from flatness and blacks that are crushed. I know what I’m seeing as flaws are a byproduct of the heavy stylization, color correction, and post-production tinkering, but there’s no getting around the fact that all of this tweaking robs the visuals of necessary information.           

THE AUDIO

The Dolby TrueHD 5.1 audio, on the other hand, leaves nothing to be desired. The movie opens with a booming action sequence before falling into a long stretch of quieter passages, but the soundfield never collapses; both the surrounds and low end remain in constant play. Dialogue, even when delivered in hushed tones, always comes through cleanly and clearly. Both the mix and presentation here are just fantastic.

English, French, and Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks are also included; English SDH, French, and Spanish subtitles are available.

THE EXTRAS

The sole extra on Disc One is a Maximum Movie Mode option. In truth this is closer to one of those In-Movie Experience tracks you used to find on Warner discs, as this is a rather sparse--and not very enlightening--combination of picture-in-picture cast/crew commentary and behind-the-scenes/production material.

There’s a branching option for the behind-the-scenes featurettes; hit the Enter button on your remote at the appropriate time and you’ll jump to a full-screen (1.78:1) presentation of said featurette. (Some of these featurettes are longer in their branching forms.) As they generally do, Warner has also included these behind-the-scenes featurettes in the form of Focus Points, which can be viewed separately.

Disc One is also BD-Live enabled. Pop it into a compatible player and you’ll be granted access to such BD-Live exclusives as a plug for the tie-in video game, a plug for the new Ultimate Edition Blu-rays of the first two movies, and a couple of visual effects featurettes.  

Disc Two contains the following kid-friendly extras, all of which are presented in high-def:

Close Up with the Cast (28 minutes) is a series of seven short featurettes hosted by various members of the cast. Topics covered include makeup, owl training, visual effects, stuntwork, etc. 

What’s On Your Mind? (8 minutes) has actor Tom (Draco Malfoy) Felton asking a few of his co-stars a series of rapid-fire questions.

One-Minute Drills (7 minutes) has a few of the younger cast members attempting to cover as much of his/her particular character’s backstory as they can in sixty seconds. 

J.K. Rowling: A Year in the Life (50 minutes), which I’m pretty sure was broadcast on television a couple years back, offers a look at Rowling’s life and work.

You also get eight deleted scenes (8 minutes total), most of which are actually short scene extensions.

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter (4 minutes) is a promotional piece for a Harry-themed attraction at Universal’s Orlando Resort.

Closing out this disc is a sneak peek at Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2 minutes), which consists of about a minute of behind-the-scenes footage and a minute-long film clip. (All I learned from the clip is that John Hurt will be back, which is another plus.)

Disc Three is a standard-def DVD of the movie. Early pressings also contain a code to acquire a downloadable digital copy of the movie.

FINAL THOUGHT

The series once again stumbles a bit as it enters the homestretch. Let’s hope the final two entries can set things aright (and receive a better presentation).