Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)

It’s no real shocker that “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” ties with the third film of the Harry Potter film franchise (“The Prisoner of Azkaban”) as my favorite. When Book 6 – as fans calls it – came out in 2005, I found it to be the giddiest read I had in ages. It was stocked with magic, suspense, action and a tragic finale. It’s my favorite book of the series, a hallmark by author J.K. Rowling, and I’ll get to why in just a minute.

So even if the film version lacks the book’s overall power -- a final attack by the villainous Death Easters on the beloved Hogwarts School of Magic was excised -- it’s still damn fine cinema. If you don’t know the characters or the main plot thread of the unimaginably successful series of imaginative books, chances are you’re not reading this review. So you won’t get a lot of background here.

As the film opens, Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) and best friends Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson) are reeling from the events of “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.” The evil Lord Voldermort (Ralph Fiennes, seen only in a flashback) has returned to again rid the world of human kind. Dumbledore, the head master of Hogwarts and Harry’s grandfather figure, takes our young hero to a home occupied by retired school teacher Horace Slughorn (Jim Broadbent), a fumbling, haunted man who clings to fame with dug in fingernails. Harry’s famous, so Slughorn latches on fast. Dumbledore knows this. He wants a memory from Slughorn that can spell out unknown mysteries of Voldermort. Harry’s the man for the task.

Meanwhile, the previously under-utilized bad apple Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton) is sent on a dark mission of his own. Unlike Harry, if Malfoy fails in his task, it spells his certain doom. Seemingly helping him is Severus Snape, the greasy black mop-headed professor of dark arts played by Alan Rickman (“Die Hard”). Rickman is so good it gives. One. Goosebumps. Every. Time. He’s. On. Screen. (Rickman clips his words like William Shatner only wishes he could.)

Yet the giddy, side-busting genius of Rowling’s book -- and the film -- is the whole dark, brooding drama is a sideshow to the real trauma of the moment – teen love. In the slyest satire since “Independence Day” (it’s a comedy people, end of discussion), Rowling has her teen heroes act as true high schoolers. Nothing, not life, or death, or the end of existence is as important as finding your soul mate for life. At 16. Snogging is heaven, not snogging (or not snogging with the girl/guy of your dreams) is worse than death. The film is a laugh riot, especially when you watch real teens get caught up in the action, as if it matters. The comedy highlight of the film is Jessie Cave as Lavender Brown, a girl so in love with love, it’s dizzying. Frightening girls like this exist the world over, and I know some in their twenties. Scary.

Director David Yates, in his second film after “Order,” mostly avoids special effects here. The focus instead is on the acting and characters - between Michael Gambon’s Dumbledore as he reluctantly puts Harry in harm’s way, and Rickman’s Snape as he follows the orders of dark and good. All of the teens keep getting better from film to film. But it’s Broadbent who steals the show as a man whose soul has nothing left but regret. The film too, looks like no other in the series. It looks magical, a found relic. Even the lighting is other worldly, some of coming from impossible angles. The credit here belongs to cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel, who has shot mostly French art hose films such as “Amelie.” That was a magical film, and it carries over here.

If there’s any negative here, besides that missing attack scene at the end, it’s the fact that the film’s studio, Warner Bros., has decided to split the final Harry Potter book, “The Deathly Hollows,” into two films. “Half-Blood Prince” the book was a brilliant pause before the big finale. The film also should have been just that. But now it’s relegated, almost tossed off, as just one more kink in the chain. It hurts the film. We have, what, four more hours, maybe five, to go before the end? It’s time to wrap this up.

If Warner can make “East of Eden” (1955) into a two-hour film, they sure as heck can boil Book 7 into a 2 hour, 30 minute, film. Rowling is brilliant, bloody brilliant, but she is no Steinbeck. Nonetheless, this installment gets an B+