The new sixth instalment of the Harry Potter movie franchise can be described in a word – WOW. Perhaps not the best effort to sticking with the book, but Harry Potter & The Half-blood Prince definitely blew Harry Potter & The Order of the Phoenix (the fifth movie and a clear disappointment) up, up and away. What began as a happier story where students frolicked around with magic and the good guys and bad guys were dimly outlined has turned into a movie so deeply sinister, it’s been rated PG13. We’ve seen Harry Potter grow up and discover things that have impacted the way the movies are being made now. Needless to say, this sixth film is one of the best yet, skillfully mixing horror, vague mystery and even some romance into the heroes’ lives as they deal with the coming-of-age aspect. David Yates, the director of this movie, has brilliantly torn off the happy smiley face façade that was Chris Columbus’ measly attempts at the first two Harry Potter movies. The magic surrounding this movie is no longer on the gee-whiz angle, but taking a much darker sinister, and more realistic, side. Though failing a bit with his previous work on the fifth movie, David Yates has managed to redeem himself with Half-blood Prince.

Though not exactly following the book closely, Half-blood Prince managed to pull it off anyway, if not successfully but well enough at least. The beginning, which should have shown Harry dealing with his comically spiteful relatives, instead shows him killing time doing what any other normal hormone-driven teenage boy would do – trying to pick up an attractive waitress. But that’s where all normality stops. From the moment Dumbledore appears in the subway station to take Harry along with him, that secret world of wands and owls is unleashed. For those who’ve read the books, it won’t be hard to follow the movie as it unfolds. Unfortunately, for those who weren’t part of the queues outside bookshops waiting for the arrival of each Harry Potter book, the movie will leave you reeling as you scramble to match its pace.

The basic plot is simple – good versus evil. But there in lies all the intricacies that make up the Harry Potter series. We don’t see even a sliver of the reborn Lord Voldermort (whoops, I mean ‘You Know Who’), the obvious antagonist, in this movie. Instead, we are pulled into the Pensieve to witness how exactly such a villain came to be. We see Voldemort as a kid and as a teenager – as a normal wizard no different from any of the other wizards there. We are introduced to his secret of immortality – seven commonplace objects containing portions of his soul called Horcruxes. We see Dumbledore taking Harry on wild adventures to procure these Horcruxes and destroy them. JK Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter book series, ingeniously tied all the books together so expect some blasts from previous Harry Potter movies.

Apart from all this, we are given lengthy moments of Harry’s more normal life in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. This would be the common repeatedly used teenage sequence of the movie which, it seems, can never be left out. Romance is in the air as Harry, Hermione and Ron start realising their hearts’ intentions. Heart breaks, jealousy and a bit too much of that English snogging (to be blatant, kissing) can be expected. I was a bit let down with the pairings though. Though Ron and Hermione look better than ever together, Ron’s first girlfriend in the movie, Lavender Brown, takes a lot of will power to tolerate. The director may have overplayed the girlish frilly stereotype with her. Also, Harry’s new love interest in the movie, Ginny Weasley (Ron’s sister), didn’t really strike me as the character from the book. In my opinion, she looked scarily too much like Harry’s mother, Lily Potter, and probably too old. These people aside, we see a bit more of Draco Malfoy in this movie after he’s been put on the shelf for the past three movies. To my huge disappointment however, Hagrid, the Weasley twins and Luna Lovegood were only given a minimal number of scenes, thereby making the possibilities of more humour in the movie close to nil.

The acting this time round has improved in places and gone down in other places. The three main actors, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint have definitely grown with their characters, and so has Tom Felton who plays Draco Malfoy. The actress who played Ginny Weasley was a let down, and so was the actor playing Dumbledore (who is failing miserably in trying to take the place of the original Dumbledore, Richard Harris, who very sadly passed away after just two movies). Overall though, the acting seemed a bit stiff when things got too serious or too emotional. The humour parts were the most believable, with Radcliffe playing the cheeky teenager to perfection. The stars of the movie, if I do say so myself, would have to be Helena Bonham Carter who played Bellatrix Lestrange, and Alan Rickman who played Severus Snape. Both renowned actors pulled off their dark characters so well, it sent shivers down my spine.

I don’t wish to inform the reader of what exactly happens in the movie. As I’ve said before if you’ve read the books, I can’t possibly spoil it for you, but if you haven’t, all the better for you to judge yourself how well you like the movie. In my opinion, movies based on books can never have the impact of the books themselves but there have been a few that have come close. Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince tried to make it to the finishing line but fell short of it. Although good in its own way, the movie was missing too many links for just about anyone to understand it. It depended too much on the audience having already read the books and knowing what would be coming. It is not in any way, a short movie, running for about two hours and forty-five minutes. But you’ll come out of the cinema thinking that it hadn’t been long enough at all, at least not enough to sufficiently cover the book. However, it is a very good effort on David Yates’ part. Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince is a must watch for fans of magic and mildly dark fantasy, but die-hard fans, beware – you may end up disappointed with how the movie turned out. Still, it’s worth a day out with your friends, and if you cannot love the story, you can still love the special effects.