"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" (My 0-10 rating: 7)
Director: David Yates
Screenplay: Steve Kloves, based on the novel by J.K. Rowling
Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Helena Bonham-Carter, Jim Broadbent, Robbie Coltrane, Michael Gambon, Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith, David Thewlis
Time: 2 hrs., 35 min.
Rating: PG (scary images, some violence and vulgarity, mild sensuality)

No surprise. "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" needs one rating for the ardent Harry Potter student and follower and an entirely separate one for the casual film goer who just wants to see an entertaining movie. For the former, it's a magnificently detailed and textured, faithful film interpretation from the J.K. Rowling books. For the latter, it's over-indulgence in the above at the expense of a need for a compelling narrative.

Which is all to say that if you're not a Harry Potter devotee, you might find more than a few yawns arising.
Being an aficionado of the motion picture arts at their deepest, I personally found the film astonishing in its ultimately thorough treatment of the details of antiquity and the richness of textures to ever corner of every frame. I saw nothing in particular as to great artistry in the dialogue or performances, everybody and everything adhering unerringly to the books. All the great drama of life and death and morality is there, the dark ambiguities existing between good and evil, all at the loss of fancy and magic of the previous chapters. But there's a distinct lacking in dramatic ups and downs, with long dwellings on unremarkable points.

Be aware, however, all ye uninitiated. You will feel left out on many an occasion when the content depends upon your subtle understandings of all previous material.

As to the now grown-up characters, they're charming, very logically presented and developed.

With ever more elaborate Harry Potter discussion happening worldwide, dissecting its meanings with all the fervor attendant to the Star Wars series, you probably should see this even as a non-follower. True, it cares little for gripping you in the ways of modern mainstream film making of dark suspense thrillers. Its devices are not the obligatory thrusts of the genre. It's far more deliberative. But it's high art.

And now the Death Eaters assault the realms of the Muggles and the wizarding as they spiral down in a mighty attack out of the sky in spooky vapor trails which pass unseen by the Muggles as the demons lay desolation upon the city of London and smash the Millennium Bridge.

Now cut to Professor Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) as he appears at a railway station for the purpose of getting to his prize student, Harry (Daniel Radcliffe). Harry is a bona fide adult at this point, looking much more settled and obviously dealing with his hormones as he looks forward to his impromptu date. Ah, but no, says Dumbledore, you have a demanding, uncompromising mission to accomplish.

So Harry, guided and secured by the professor's arm, surges forth at the now mandatory warp speed. And here, in the dark of night, they arrive in a small, isolated village where they enter what is apparently a totally trashed house. And what better place to meet the new visiting professor of the upcoming school year. He is former potions professor Horace Slughorn (Jim Broadbent).

It is Dumbledore's goal to tempt Slughorn back to Hogwarts, there to meet work with Harry in order to probe the professor's mind in finding a primary clue regarding the Dark Lord. And why would Slughorn hook onto the urgent lead? Well, you see, he at one time had a child wizard protege named Tom Riddle. That child wizard grew up to be, of course, Voldemort. But meantime, Harry's student nemesis, Draco Malfoy, is conspiring to a terrible crime the sole purpose of which is to pave the way for a Voldemort's comeback.

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