HARRY POTTER - U.K. REVIEWS HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE

U.K. REVIEWS HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince had its world premiere in London Monday and received its first reviews today (Wednesday). They are, by and large, approving if not outright raves. Wendy Ide in the Times gets down to business immediately "Does the latest Potter have what it takes to be the family film of the summer?" she asks. "Will Harry turn the Transformers into scrap metal and Ice Age into a puddle?" After answering yes to both questions, she observes that the latest film, with its "collective romantic awakening," is likely to be of greater interest to adults than the previous ones. But younger children, she noted, "squirmed with agonized embarrassment" at some of the romantic scenes at the screening she attended. Andrew Pulver in the Guardian credits director David Yates with making a "solidly constructed" film that employs "tried and tested cinematic language." Alistair Harkness in The Scotsman concludes with no particular enthusiasm that the latest Potter sequel "succeeds in being a much more immersive film than normal and comes close to capturing on film some of the texture and richness of Rowling's books." The London Independent calls on a 15-year-old to write its review, and hers is the most critical of all. Ella Thorold writes " The Half-Blood Prince is frightening, funny, romantic and entertaining but as the end credits rolled, I still felt disappointed. I had waited all year to see my second-favorite Potter book brought to life. If I wasn't a die-hard fan, I'm sure I would have loved it. My gripe is that the film was simply too different from the book -- the writers inserted pointless scenes and took out others crucial to the narrative. It just could have been better.

08/07/2009