Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

The saga continues for me as I have now seen six of the films in the Harry Potter series. This film was another great experience although considerably darker than those before it. As I've watched each of these films I've grown to look forward to the next. Not only is the story intriguing, but the growth of each character is exciting.

This film took some steps I feel were needed to solidify the need for future films. Being unaware of the books I can say that the films had allowed enough tension between characters and the love story was primed and ready. This side of the story was not dominant in the film but made sense all the same. I was glad to see the obvious and less obvious love connections that mixed into the film.

Second was the decision to allow a main character to die. Some series cling to the main characters and leave things seeming unrealistic. In the dangerous world of Harry Potter it seemed necessary that someone would die at some point. To avoid being a spoiler I'll leave it at that. I'm sure it was a hard decision for the author and for the filmmakers who knew their audience loved these characters.

Finally, they've continued to take the story out of the classroom. I'm glad to see that the world of Harry Potter is ever expanding. This has lent some realism to a fantastic story since it doesn't confine everything into the grounds of Hogwarts.

I'll also say that the villains are exceptional once again. Being a darker film requires that you have villains that you can really hate. Once again there were the obvious and not so obvious villains. The film also allowed for the villains to have a human side. The idea that fear motivates some people to be bad is one of my favorite in films.

Once again I'm excited to see what happens next. I'm getting close to the end and glad that I'm not seeing any falling off in the making of these films. I would give this film a 4.1 out of 5 stars and recommend it to anyone.