Film Review: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Part 4

We're almost at the end of this film now and the bits that happen here are some of my favourite scenes of the whole film.

The post last week had Slughorn trying to add to his collection of students, Harry getting a little bit closer to Ginny and Ron getting in on the romantic action.

This time around there's a big break up in Hogwarts (much to the amusement of the staff), Harry and Draco have a bit of a tiff in the toilets, there's a funeral and we get to visit another memory of Tom Riddle.

89. I love Love Potioned Ron. Rupert Grint is amazing at pulling it all off as well. This is one of my favourite bits in the book too.

90. Obviously this helps to give Harry an in with Slughorn. Using the name ‘Voldemort’ doesn’t help to improve things there though.

91. Back to Ron and I love the way the potion wears off. There’s that look of realisation on his face, the ‘oh crap’ face of someone who’s just realised they’ve made a complete fool of themselves.

92. Luckily we had that reminder about bezoars just a few minutes ago so when Ron is poisoned, Harry things to stuff one down Ron’s throat. “These girls, they’re going to kill me” hehe.

93. McGonagall is understandably a little concerned about the number of serious accidents befalling the students in the school. She also looks thoroughly unimpressed at Lavender’s arrival. Also, cat fight over Ron’s bed, in full view of all the teachers. So perfect. Of course Ron drops Hermione in it by saying her name instead of Lavender’s.

94. Except they don’t actually get together here. Hermione accepts that perhaps Ron feels the same way as she does but then we move back to Draco and one lonely little bird in that impractical birdcage.

95. And it’s going to be a very lonely little bird now because while the vanishing cabinet can handle apples without any trouble, cute little living birdies aren’t able to make the trip unscathed.

96. Lavender seems to be going the same way as Draco and his mood seems to be making it snow at the breakfast table. I love Hermione’s explanation of how Ron and Lavender broke up. It’s also slightly disappointing for Hermione to realise that Ron did actually kind of confess the fact he liked her, kinda, in a way.

97. Draco’s behaviour is very suspicious here as well, so obviously Harry has to follow him out of the Great Hall. Oh and the other bird is missing from the impractical birdcage now as well. I guess this means the experiments aren’t going well.

98. Draco doesn’t take well to Harry’s walking in on him having a little weep. Harry chooses this moment to try out one of the Prince’s spells on his enemy. I mean, to be fair, Draco did start flinging curses at Harry first, but Harry’s kind of stupid trying something when he doesn’t know what it does. Luckily for Draco Snape shows up before he can bleed to death.

99. Clearly this helps the potions book lose all appeal for Harry now so Ginny suggests he gets rid of it and who better to do that than her.

100. In the Room of Requirement there’s a strange fluttery noise coming from an old cupboard and a random bird flies out. Ginny gets Harry to close his eyes and then goes in for a little bit of stealth kissing. Cute.

101. Ron “Did you and Ginny do it then?” Harry is clearly thinking about something else entirely.

102. I love the whole Felix Felicis bit, it’s one of my favourite moments in the book. Hermione gives Harry a quick pep talk about what Harry has to do to get to Slughorn but Harry’s off to see Hagrid because he’s got a good feeling about this. Hermione and Ron look like Harry has cracked.

103. Slughorn’s hiding in the greenhouse trying to pinch very expensive plants. He’s such a Slytherin.

104. I love how Harry talks to Slughorn here. He’s not taking any of Slughorn’s nonsense, hehe.

105. And look, it’s a giant dead spider! The pincer bit always makes me smile because a friend had a gif avatar of it on a forum and it just used to be on a permanent loop with Harry doing his pincer thing.

106. Oops, Slughorn’s pulled a bit off of the deceased, at least he looks somewhat guilty about him. And he does make a good effort with the eulogy.

107. I could listen to drunken wizards singing songs all night. I wonder if they know the one about the wizard’s staff with the knob on the end.

108. And then things get all sober as Slughorn remembers the fish Harry’s mum gave him. This is quite a nice way to let us know that when a witch or wizard dies spells they have cast cease to be. It’s clever.

109. Harry goes for the guilt approach in order to get the memory from Slughorn. And it works, of course.

110. Whee! Into another memory. I wish we could’ve gotten to see the ones featuring Merope and Morfin. Now we get to see the real memory featuring Tom talking to Slughorn about Horcruxes, very dark magic.

111. And now we know what Tom was planning, how he figured out how to become immortal. Slughorn is shocked by the idea of someone killing once, let alone seven times, but Riddle’s fairly cool about the whole thing. He’s a little bit of a psychopath.

112. Dumbledore is a little bit shocked by this revelation though apparently he’s suspected it for a while. So it’s time to recap what might be a horcrux, like a diary or a ring.


113. When Harry touches the ring it goes all spinny and we get Voldemorty flashbacks. Harry also does a little bit of a Voldemorty twitch. Ooh, can horcruxes communicate or recognise each other?

And since this is where things start getting really dark and scary I'll just stop here.

We'll up the creep factor next week with the last installment when Dumbledore realises that Harry has kind of grown up in the last six years, there's a lot of dead things in a lake, then a dead person at Hogwarts, and then a bittersweet ending.