Harry Potter 6

When I saw my first instalment of the Harry Potter Franchise 6 years ago (Chamber of Secrets - as I hadn't read the books when the first one came out) I would never have believed that the release of a new Potter film would have me so excited. Chris Columbus' original two films are dire affairs, full of inconsequential Potterverse tit-bits from the books and borderline dreadful acting from the child leads. 3 films on and the prospect of a new Potter is an event in my calendar. As the books got longer the films have got shorter, with scriptwriters who were prepared to cut out all the fluff and directors who understood how to create drama on a screen the last three Potter films were genuinely good fantasy fiction movies.

So what of Harry Potter 6? This was my least favourite of the books due to lack of plot or anything of any consequence happening (and don't yell 'Dumbledore' at me - it's all just a set-up for book 7). On screen though, I found myself rather enjoying what was ostensibly the same story. Even though I was still confused by many elements of the Potter 'arc' plot (for example why is the fact that Snape turns out to be the Half Blood prince relevant in the slightest? Why does Ginny insist that Harry hide the Half Blood Prince's potion book?), it was everything else that made me enjoy myself. The teen angst will-they-wont-they subplot - which would normally be tedious and irritating - is handled with humour and makes the characters endearing and interesting, which ultimately made me care about what was happening despite my reservations.

Those reservations were in fact many. The scene in which Harry and Dumbledore fight creatures from the deep doesn't work for some reason - maybe because I couldn't get it out of my head that it was nowhere near as good as Gandalf on the bridge of Khazad-dûm. The behaviour of Harry at the end when Snape confronts Dumbledore is totally out of character (and in fact a change from the book which really doesn't work).

Ultimately though the good parts outweighed the plot holes. Rupert Grint is turning into a really good actor, the more comic stuff that they give him to do the better as he's rather good at it. Whether he's bigging himself up as a goalkeeper or desperately trying to unentangle himself from his accidental girlfriend, the lad's got good timing and it papers nicely over the film's many downsides. Add that to some quite spectacular special effects (Death Eaters flying through the streets of London at the start and - my favourite - the fluid and slightly out-of-focus style that is used when Harry watches Tom Riddle's childhood memory of Dumbledore's visit to the orphanage) and I find myself unable to complain. It may of course be a case of the producers covering up the lack of plot substance with comic filler, but the sixth book is only a holding pattern for the big finish in book seven anyway - so it's difficult to think of what they could have done to make it better.

I suspect that die-hard Potter fans will love it regardless, I enjoyed myself despite really not expecting to.

One final aside. There were very few children in the cinema where I saw the film. Perhaps the dark material of the later books is becoming a little too much for the under 10s out there and parents are keeping their kids away? Hopefully by the time 'Deathly Hallows part 2' comes out it'll be a 15 certificate.