Will Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince be Movie Magic?

Posted by Robin Ruinsky (robin@filmschoolrejects.com) on July 3, 2008

Yes, it’s nearly that time again! Harry Potter is returning in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Empire Magazine has a cover of Harry determined and bloodied, ready to go to battle for his beloved Hogwarts. They also have a link to USA Today’s first look at the new film. That first look includes some new photos, well some are new, some have been previously released.

Half Blood Prince which arrives in theaters November 21, will among other things, explore Draco Malfoy giving in to the dark side. It’s not like we didn’t see this coming, did we? He’s been a nasty little creature from the first film.

As usual Hogwarts is threatened and Harry and company must do their best to save the old school so they can fight on for another day and at least two more films.

The Harry Potter literary saga is now complete. The readers of the books know the end to the story. It’s very likely that people who haven’t read the books know how it ends, so there has to be an effort to make these movies stand on their own apart from the books and each other.

Can this be accomplished? So far, I don’t believe any of the films have been particularly great. They’re okay to good and they please many of the Harry Potter fans. Looking at the saga purely from the perspective of their merit as films I don’t think any of them have achieved greatness.

The final book, “Deathly Hallows” will be split into two films and I wonder if those final films, along with Half Blood Prince will truly create magic on film.

Have a look at the new Empire Magazine Cover as well as a gallery of great new photos from the film below (click to enlarge):

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