Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)

Rated PG for scary images, some violence, language and mild sensuality

153 minutes

Cast

Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter

Rupert Grint as Ron Weasley

Emma Watson as Hermione Granger

Helena Bonham-Carter as Bellatrix Lestrange

Bonnie Wright as Ginny Weasley

Jim Broadbent as Horace Slughorn

Michael Gambon as Albus Dumbledore

Alan Rickman as Severus Snape

Based on the novel by

• J.K. Rowling

Screenplay by

• Steve Kloves

Directed by

• David Yates

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (2009) Plot

Lord Voldemort tightens his grip on the wizarding and Muggle worlds: his Death Eaters kidnap Mr Ollivander and destroy London’s Millennium Bridge. With Lucius Malfoy incarcerated in Azkaban, Voldemort chooses his son, Draco Malfoy, to carry out a secret mission at Hogwarts. Draco’s mother, Narcissa, and aunt Bellatrix Lestrange seek out Severus Snape, who gains their confidence by claiming he is a mole within the Order of the Phoenix. Snape makes an Unbreakable Vow with Narcissa to protect Draco and fulfil his task should he fail.

Harry Potter accompanies Albus Dumbledore to persuade former Potions professor Horace Slughorn to return to Hogwarts. Then, at the Burrow, Harry reunites with his best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. In Diagon Alley, they see Draco and Narcissa Malfoy, and follow them into Knockturn Alley. The pair meet with Death Eaters, including the werewolf Fenrir Greyback, at Borgin & Burke’s.

Harry believes Draco is now a Death Eater, but Ron and Hermione are sceptical. On the Hogwarts Express, Harry sneaks into the Slytherin carriage wearing his Invisibility Cloak to spy on Malfoy. Malfoy notices and petrifies Harry, leaving him on the train. Luna Lovegood finds him and counters Draco’s spell.

Harry discovers that his used Potions textbook is filled with helpful notes and spells added by the “Half-Blood Prince”. Using it, Harry excels in class, annoying Hermione and impressing Slughorn, who awards him a Liquid Luck potion. Ron makes the Gryffindor Quidditch team as Keeper and begins dating Lavender Brown, upsetting Hermione. Harry consoles Hermione while acknowledging his own feelings for Ginny Weasley.

Harry spends the Christmas holidays with the Weasleys. His suspicions about Draco are dismissed by the Order, but Arthur Weasley reveals that the Malfoys may be interested in a Vanishing Cabinet at Borgin & Burke’s. Bellatrix and Greyback attack and destroy the Burrow.

At Hogwarts, Dumbledore asks Harry to retrieve Slughorn’s memory of a young Voldemort. Slughorn has resisted giving an accurate memory. After Ron accidentally ingests a love potion intended for Harry, Harry takes him to Slughorn for a cure. Slughorn offers the boys some mead he had intended as a gift to Dumbledore. Ron is poisoned upon sipping it. Harry’s quick thinking saves Ron. While recovering in the infirmary, Ron murmurs Hermione’s name, causing Lavender to end their relationship.

Harry confronts Draco about the poisoned mead and also a cursed necklace that nearly killed Katie Bell. A duel erupts, and Harry uses one of the Half-Blood Prince’s curses without knowing what it is. The curse severely injures Malfoy, and he is only saved by Snape’s timely arrival and reversal of the curse. Fearing the book contains Dark Magic, Ginny persuades Harry to hide it in the Room of Requirement. They then share their first kiss.

Harry uses his Liquid Luck potion to convince the reluctant Slughorn to surrender the memory Dumbledore needs. Viewing it in the Penseive, Dumbledore and Harry learn Voldemort sought information about Horcruxes, magical objects containing pieces of a wizard’s soul for immortality. Dumbledore surmises Voldemort divided his soul into six Horcruxes, two of which have been destroyed: Tom Riddle’s diary and Marvolo Gaunt’s ring. They travel to a cave where Harry aids Dumbledore in drinking a potion that hides another Horcrux, Slytherin’s locket.

A weakened Dumbledore defends them from Inferi by creating a ring of fire, and apparates them back to Hogwarts, where Bellatrix, Greyback, and other Death Eaters have entered through the Vanishing Cabinet in the Room of Requirement that Draco has secretly connected to one in Knockturn Alley. As Harry hides, Draco appears and disarms the headmaster, revealing Voldemort chose him to kill Dumbledore. Draco hesitates; Snape, however, arrives and kills Dumbledore. As the Death Eaters escape, Snape reveals to Harry that he is the Half-Blood Prince.

As Hogwarts students and staff mourn Dumbledore’s death, Harry tells Ron and Hermione that the locket is fake and contains a message from “R.A.B.”, who stole the real Horcrux intending to destroy it. Harry, Ron and Hermione agree to forgo their final Hogwarts year to hunt for the remaining Horcruxes.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (2009) Box office

With an estimated budget of $250 million, it is one of the most expensive films ever made and the most expensive film in the Harry Potter film series.^{[104][105][106]} Advance ticket sales on Fandango.com for Half-Blood Prince surpassed advance ticket sales for Transformers 2 at the same point in sale cycles. It is also in MovieTickets.com’s top 25 advance sellers of all time.^[107]

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince broke the then-record for biggest midnight showings, making $22.8 million in 3,000 cinemas; The Twilight Saga: New Moon bested this with $26.3 million in November.^[108][109] Half-Blood Prince opened in the same Wednesday slot that Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix did in 2007.^[110] The film’s box office run finished on 17 December 2009.

The film opened in 4,325 cinemas (rising to 4,455 three weeks later, becoming the largest number of cinemas until The Twilight Saga: Eclipse surpassed it with the 4,468 cinemas in 2010);^[111] and grossed $58.2 million on its opening day at the top of the United States and Canadian box office, the third-highest Wednesday opening of all time behind Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and The Twilight Saga: Eclipse.

It is also the nineteenth-highest single-day gross of all time and the third-highest for a film in the Harry Potter franchise behind Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2‘s $91.1 million^[113] and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1, which made $61.1 million.^[114] It earned an additional $46 million overseas for a worldwide total of $104 million, breaking the record for highest single-day worldwide gross, previously held by The Dark Knight.^[115] By 20 July, the film had taken in $158.7 million in the US and $236 million from 85 other markets, for a worldwide tally of $394.7 million.

This broke the record for biggest-ever worldwide five-day opening, surpassing Spider-Man 3‘s $381 million. In the US, it surpassed all of its predecessors by a wide margin, achieving the sixth-largest-ever five-day opening in that country.^[117] The film held this worldwide record for two years until it was topped by Deathly Hallows – Part 2 ($483.2 million).^[118] In the UK, the film grossed £19.75 million (equivalent to about $38.13 million), the highest opening for both the series and releases of 2009.

At the end of the film’s US and Canadian box office run, the total ticket sales of the film were $302.3 million;^[3] making it the third-most successful film in the franchise, after Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 and Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone,^[120] as well as the third-highest-grossing film of 2009 in these regions behind Avatar and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.^[121] As with all of the previous films in the franchise, Half-Blood Prince proved to be extremely successful globally with an estimated non-US total gross of $632.1 million, totalling approximately $934.5 million worldwide.

This made it the second-highest-grossing film of 2009, behind Avatar. It is the fifth-highest-grossing film in the franchise, behind Philosopher’s Stone, both parts of Deathly Hallows, and Order of the Phoenix.^[123] It was once the eighth-highest grossing film of all time.^[124]

In South Africa, the film opened with the number-one position, grossing $789,176;^[125] it maintained the number-one position during the second week, with a total of $242,336.^[126] In Australia, the film broke records with a debut of $11,492,142. Opening at number one, it maintained a second week at number one with a total of $5,278,096 (down 54%), and grossed a total of $24,208,243.

In France, the film debuted at $20,541,239 from 949 cinemas.^[128] In Japan, the film held the top spot in the box office rankings until the release of Kamen Rider Decade: All Riders vs. Dai-Shocker, which took the top spot in its first weekend.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (2009) Critical reception

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 84% based on 280 reviews, with an average rating of 7.1/10. The website’s critical consensus reads, “Dark, thrilling, and occasionally quite funny, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is also visually stunning and emotionally satisfying.”^[130] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 78 out of 100 based on 36 critics, indicating “generally favorable reviews”.

The film scored an 87 from professional critics at the Broadcast Film Critics Association; it is the first Harry Potter film to receive a Critic’s Choice certificate.^[132] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of “A−” on an A+ to F scale.^[133]

The first review of the film came three weeks before the official release: Paul Dergarabedian of Hollywood.com ranked the film with The Lord of the Rings film trilogy and called the film a possible Oscar contender. He highly praised the performance of Sir Michael Gambon, Alan Rickman and Daniel Radcliffe. He commented, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is a tour-de-force that combines style and substance, special effects and heart and most importantly great performances from all of the actors young and not-so-young”.

Another early review came from Devin Faraci of the UK tabloid Chud.com, who called the film the best in the Harry Potter series, and also in the year.^[135]

Andrew Pulver of The Guardian gave a positive review, scoring it 3.5 out of 5 stars.^[136] Todd McCarthy of the trade magazine Variety said that the film is “dazzlingly well made” and “less fanciful than the previous entries”. He praised Alan Rickman’s performance, described Helena Bonham Carter as “mesmerising”, and Jim Broadbent as a “grand eccentric old professor”.^[137] BBC News’s Tim Masters praised the film’s cinematography, visual effects, production design, acting and darker plotline.

The Hollywood Reporter‘s Kirk Honeycutt felt that the film’s first half is “jerky and explosive”, but in the second half, the film finds better footing. He also praised Nicholas Hooper’s composition, Bruno Delbonnel’s cinematography, and Stuart Craig’s set design.^[139] Chris Tilly of IGN UK commented on the length of the film, saying “while on occasion it drags, the 153-minute run-time never feels too long, thanks in no small part to the astonishing visuals and (largely) marvellous performances,” and felt that it was the best film in the series.^[140]

However, Dave Golder of SFX Magazine found some aspects of the film to be a disappointment, mainly due to the large number of opportunities the director and screenwriter had sacrificed to devote “huge swathes of the film to subplots of Harry and his chums’ teenage romances,” but nevertheless found the film to be a large enjoyment, praising the performances of Broadbent and Rickman.

Screen Daily commented, “David Yates and his team struggle to whip J.K. Rowling’s 608-page tome into a consistently thrilling cinematic experience”, but praised the shooting of some scenes and Bonham Carter’s acting.^[142] David Stratton, of Margaret and David at the Movies, gave the film a 2.5 out of a possible 5 stars, remarking, “For non-readers [of the Harry Potter series] the films are now borderline incomprehensible”, and that the film was “a little tedious” and “generally less interesting visually than its predecessors.” He, however, praised the acting of Sir Gambon and Broadbent.