Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

After watching this, I’m worried that a movie franchise that had been building up some significant steam could now be heading for a disaster of Matrix proportions. While the movie doesn’t commit an atrocity on the level of, say, the rave scene in Matrix Reloaded, it does manage to be quite dull. This far into the series, that’s a bit disconcerting. This time out, the plot spends a lot of time on dreary romances involving Harry, Ron and Hermione (Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson). Little happens to advance the story, and what does happen is handled poorly. One gets the sensation of this chapter sort of skidding into the next one, a two-part conclusion based on J.K. Rowling’s last book in the series. Let’s hope they get the magic back for the final films, because this chapter is one of the worst in an otherwise reliable franchise.