"Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince" marks the second time David Yates helms a film in the series. His work on "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" left me with an odd, unsatisfied feeling in theaters, likely the result of the longest book in the series being condensed to the shortest running time in the film series. Through DVD, I was able to revisit the film and I found myself warming to it quite easily.

My initial gut reaction to this sixth and most recent tale of Harry Potter's adventures left me with the same feeling as the "Order of the Phoenix": underwhelmed and a tad bored. Unfortunately, revisiting this feature again on DVD, a few months later has done nothing to help my overall feelings towards the film; quite to the contrary, I like the film even less.

While David Yates has taken more time to let this adaptation unfold, he ends up accomplishing very little of consequence. The story begins with Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) under the close watch of the world's greatest wizard, Albus Dumbledore (Michael Gambon). Dumbledore has a special assignment for Harry: get close to the new potions professor, (Professor Snape the regular instructor of that assignment has been moved to Defense Against the Dark Arts) Horace Slughorn (Jim Broadbent). Slughorn is believed to hold the answer to a mystery surrounding former student, the nefarious Tom Riddle, known more commonly as Lord Voldemort.

While Harry's task is quite clear, the exact nature of Draco Malfoy's (Tom Felton) isn't. Malfoy has been chosen for special assignment by Voldemort himself, and has the backing of the Death Eaters, including Severus Snape (Alan Rickman), still maintaining his "double agent" status. Where the film goes wrong is the rate at which these plots unfold. We get quite solid sequences furthering these stories, but for the most part, they are padded with quite uninspired and overly long side plots of teen angst. Given this is Harry, Ron and Hermione's sixth year at Hogwarts, making them all 17, it's unreasonable for the stories to not touch on the characters struggle with universal emotions that all kids face. The writing for these side plots however are repetitive, feeling at times like rehashes of similar plots in film's four and five. Drug out for extended periods of time here, to call them dull is an understatement.

The actors deserve no fault as all remain very competent in their roles, but deserve better screenplays, which is odd considering the author of the first four films, Steve Kloves returns here after a hiatus on "Order of the Phoenix." There are some standout moments in the film and those bring back fond memories of the third and fourth film, but they are too far and few in between; great visual sequences end up being used more as eye candy than legitimate plot points. More maddening are major book sequences cut to give more time to the "As Hogwarts Turns" diversions. In fact, the film's title is under explained, relegated to a cryptic line at the climax of the film.

Speaking of the climax, Yates really falls down on the job when it comes to filming "THAT SCENE." You know which one I'm talking about. It perhaps sums up the disappointment the movie as a whole turns out to be. It fails to evoke the emotional weight that follows it as well as the power of Harry and Dumbledore's journey to the cave that preceded it. Yates is clearly to blame here as the actors seem sapped of life, something that doesn't happen anywhere else in the film. It's dull visually, unlike many other major sequences of the film, and ends up being nearly forgettable.

David Yates has managed to make a very interesting series dull and tired; he is the antithesis to the film's third director and makes me pine for the pedestrian, but still exciting Chris Columbus entries. "Harry Potter and Half Blood Prince" is the metaphorical Avada Kedavra to my enthusiasm for the series.

"Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince" is presented with an anamorphic 2.35:1 widescreen presentation. The transfer to put it bluntly is garbage. I don't know what is going on with Warner's new releases department, but this marks the second major blockbuster that they have ham fistedly dropped the ball on in the visual category. The previous title was "The Dark Knight" and if you are familiar with its transfer, prepared to be even more disappointed. While a dark film in the theaters, the contrast on this DVD is dialed way down, which isn't helped by the extreme lack of detail. When one ventures closer than the recommended viewing distance, heavy digital noise swarms over character faces. This is very apparent towards the beginning of the film when Harry returns to the Weasly house. At a reasonable viewing distance, the film is far from unwatchable, but entirely unremarkable and not an indication of the upper spectrum of DVD quality.

I compared the transfer to that of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" and "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" and it's very clear the transfer quality has steadily decreased on the past two films. The quality of this release is unacceptable given the film at hand and the studio responsible for it. Not shockingly, like "The Dark Knight," the Blu-Ray (which I've also seen in action) edition looks absolutely amazing. Consumers might want to question whether this is merely another unfortunate botch or some additional pressure from Warner to drive the unconverted to HD.


The Audio

Fortunately, the Dolby Digital 5.1 English audio track doesn't suffer the same fate as the transfer. The film is full of auditory life when the Death Eaters are swooping around our heroes, giving the surrounds a nice workout. Dialogue is well balanced with the effects and score and is always clear. A good example of the track's strengths lies in the Quidditch scene where an inferior track would show its weaknesses very quickly. A 5.1 Spanish track is included as are English, French and Spanish subtitles.

The Extras

The two-disc edition of "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince" is more an exercise in quantity over quality. The cover art proudly boasts the first footage from the final film in the series "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" and delivers it in a short intro from relevant crew members and brief teaser trailer.

A handful of deleted scenes and extensions of other scenes are presented, but nothing here would have saved the film from its dull fate.

"J.K. Rowling: A Year in the Life" is the most interesting bonus feature; essentially a 50-odd minute documentary where the author of the wonderful series gets to share her thoughts surrounding the wild ride from unknown to the history books of modern literature. It is nice to get some candid comments from her about life in general as well as a real face on the person behind the series.

"Close Up with the Cast of Harry Potter" are a series of brief, behind the scenes featurettes that together feel more like a television making-of/hype special. If it ran a little bit longer, it would be a more insightful piece, but the end product is just too rushed to be effective.

"One Minute Drills" is an entire waste of time as the cast is put on the spot to summarize the preceding films in a minute or less. Equally disposable is "What's on Your Mind?" a six-minute segment hosted by Tom Felton where cast and crew are asked fairly random questions and their answers are edited together in quick succession. To be fair, these two featurettes are likely intended for a younger audience, but adults who stumble on them will be very bored.

A 12-minute extended promo for the Universal Orlando attraction "The Wizarding World of Harry Potter" boils down to little more than cast and crew hyping the attraction, with little more than some occasional snippets of art design being shown in between copious amounts of footage from all six films.

Finally, the an insert in the case features a code for a digital copy of the film for iTunes or Windows Media.
Final Thoughts

"Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince" isn't a terrible film, but it definitely doesn't come close to any of its predecessors. It takes far too long to do far too little, with only flashes of greatness few and far in between. The technical presentation of this DVD edition in no way helps matters; check it out if you want but don't reward Warner for a sub-par film in a sub-par package. Rent It.