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Harry is content at home knowing that the wizarding world is in search of Voldemort, but Dumbledore has other plans. He begins Harry’s 6th year at Hogwarts by having him accompany him on his way to sway former Professor Slughorn to come back to Hogwarts and begins to bode to Harry that there are bigger things than classes that Harry will need to concentrate on this year, and one of the most important is befriending Slughorn. Thus begins Harry’s apprenticeship to Dumbledore as they begin the secret work of collecting memories, people’s memories of Tom Riddle before he became known as Lord Voldemort. Meanwhile, Ron discovers the bliss of the opposite sex and Harry and Hermione reel over what it feels like when the person they each like pursues someone else as Ron goes after Lavender Brown and Ginny dates another boy. Life and love continue at Hogwarts while Harry suspects Draco Malfoy of becoming a Death Eater and thanks to the mysterious Half-Blood Prince becomes a master at potion making.

While Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is not a happy tale, it is probably the single best Potter film to date. David Yates has completely captured the spirit of the book series in a way that no film has yet; while a few events may have changed the look and tone of the film is masterful and pitch-perfect, not only the best Potter film to date but one of the best films of the year. The special effects, acting, directing style and every element of the film tells of a director who took the time to craft an excellent, character driven piece and to fold the world around them, not fold the characters into the world. Yates manages to weave past and present together in an interesting way so that the flashbacks (memories) never seem stale, and he somehow manages to use these flashbacks to develop Voldemort into an even darker villain than he was before.

What makes The Half-Blood Prince the most engaging film so far is that it spends the most time developing our lead three into full fledged beings with feelings, crushes, desires, ambitions and pain. When Hermione realizes Ron is denying feelings for her the audience feels it to, when Harry & Hermione call each other their best friends we realize there is nothing sexualized in this, just a pure familial love for one another, and when Ron gains victory on the Quidditch field you cheer with him. Luna and Ginny are even developed further though both have only small roles in the film.

Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson & Rupert Grint have truly grown into fine actors and were able to sell a script like this. This Harry Potter was far more character than action and the leads were captivating enough that no one I know has even realized this.

For those that want no spoilers you might want to skip this paragraph because I have to talk about this plot point. What makes The Half-Blood Prince so sad is the ending – the death of Dumbledore. It is heroic and tragic in the book and the film, even if the film omits his funeral, the single saddest scene in the series. What made this so tragic for me in the film is that this is the film that finally got Dumbledore right. Dumbledore is the hardest character to capture; he is whimsy, brilliance and sternness wrapped into one incredibly powerful man and while Richard Harris & Michael Gambon have both been excellent Dumbledore’s the character has never been that perfect melding on screen until this film, which is what made it so sad for me that I knew he had to die. About half way through the film the realization that Dumbledore was the Dumbledore from my imagination hit me, and as they walked through Voldemort’s youth together I realized that Dumbledore’s life was about to come to his inevitable conclusion and I was not going to see this Dumbledore in the next film.

Though the film’s ending strays from the book I have to say that it ends in the perfect place. Ending at the funeral with the new Minister of Magic approaching Harry while perfect in the book would have seemed artificial and tacked on in film; the characters would have seemed forced into making decisions that were far beyond them. Instead, The Half-Blood Prince ends almost like The Empire Strikes Back, it sets the characters on the precipice of what comes next as Harry, Ron & Hermione realize they need to find the horcruxes and finish what Dumbledore started.

Director: David Yates
Writer: Steve Kloves
Harry Potter: Daniel Radcliffe
Ron Weasley: Rupert Grint
Hermione Granger: Emma Watson
Professor Dumbledore: Michael Gambon
Professor Slughorn: Jim Broadbent
Draco Malfoy: Tom Felton
Professor Snape: Alan Rickman
Ginny Weasley: Bonnie Wright
Hagrid: Robbie Coltrane
Professor McGonagall: Maggie Smith

Harry Potter: Did you know, sir? Then?
Albus Dumbledore: Did I know that I just met the most dangerous dark wizard of all time? No.

In my opinion Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is by far the better of the two Harry Potter films directed by Chris Columbus. Part of this is because the story is designed in such a say that Columbus cannot ignore the deeper and darker elements behind the story. In their second year at Hogwarts Harry and friends get begin to finally delve into the darkness that was only alluded to in The Sorcerer’s Stone. However, this is also the Harry Potter film in which Columbus wounded the rest of the franchise.

The new chapter in Harry’s adventures begins when he is home with the Dursley’s and a new character named Dobby appears bidding Harry to not go back to Hogwarts this year as someone will try to kill him. When Uncle Vernon blames some of Dobby’s mischief on Harry he locks Harry into his room and even bars the windows so that he cannot get out by any means. However, the Weasley boys come to Harry’s rescue and with the help of the rest of the Weasley’s he manages to get back to Hogwarts where as Dobby promises bad things start to happen. A rumor begins to spread about the hidden “chamber of secrets” somewhere within the castle that contains a monster that only the heir of Slytherin can control and when students begin to be mysteriously petrified and strange messages appear people begin to try to figure out who the heir of Slytherin really is and of course all fingers begin to point to Harry. We are introduced to Tom Riddle, Azkaban, the Minister of Magic, and the restrictions of Underage Wizardry. This is a very important year in Harry’s life.

There are two major elements in The Chamber of Secrets that Columbus couldn’t ignore and begin to bring out the darker side of Potter’s world – Dobby and the obvious child abuse.

To begin with the topic of child abuse we have Harry’s treatment at the hands of the Dursley’s. In The Sorcerer’s Stone Harry is locked into a cupboard under the Dursley’s staircase as his room, only given hand me downs and verbally disparaged constantly. By year two Harry’s circumstances have only improved superficially; instead of living under the stairs he has Dobby’s second bedroom, but is forced to stay in it without making noise or anything else that would give away his presence and when he angers Uncle Vernon he becomes a prisoner complete with bars on his windows. This is an epic form of child abuse that is allowed by Dumbledore and everyone that loves Harry because of something we find out in a later book, therefore Columbus could not ignore this darker element and instead had to acknowledge it.

One of my favorite characters to come out of Chamber of Secrets is the house elf Dobby. House elves are peculiar creatures and by many wizards they are abused and demeaned as they are a form of slave to many. In fact, the demented part about the house elves – that Columbus had to include – is that when they do something that wrongs their masters they must punish themselves. Dobby himself is an abused house elf and because he keeps defying his masters by warning Harry about emmenent danger he is constant being wounded, once he even mentions ironing his hands in punishment.

The really thing that begins to truly build in The Chamber of Secrets is the single most important element to the entire franchise, the reason behind Voldemort’s reign of terror – the race war within the wizarding world. In reality there is a long standing thought with a certain amount of wizards that you need to be of pure wizard blood to be a true wizard, no muggle lineage in you at all. Voldemort himself was half wizard, half muggle and he viewed the muggle part of himself as weak and so he sought out to destroy the muggles, muggle lovers, and anyone that stood in his way. This war of racial purity is set up in a huge way in the books and only mentioned by the end of the filmed version of Chamber of Secrets. If I have a list of grievances for what Chris Columbus did as a director to the first two Potter films this blasé treatment of the racial issue is number one on this list. As Columbus didn’t do his dillegence in setting up the racial discrimination as he should have the rest of the franchise has been scrambling to somehow explain this to the film viewers and put this racial war back into the film.

In the end both the film and book for Chamber of Secrets proves what I have always said about the Harry Potter series – they are not for children. After The Sorcerer’s Stone the series begins to take on much more adult themes and disturbing circumstances, and as such I do think the Harry Potter films should be viewed with caution for children and parents should not just assume they are suitable for children of any age. Chamber of Secrets is perhaps the last Harry Potter film I would let any child under at lease 11 see, at least if they were my child.

Director: Chris Columbus
Writer: Steve Kloves
Harry Potter: Daniel Radcliffe
Ron Weasley: Rupert Grint
Hermione Granger: Emma Watson
Professor Dumbledore: Richard Harris
Professor McGonagall: Maggie Smith
Hagrid: Robbie Coltrane
Aunt Petunia: Fiona Shaw
Dudley: Harry Melling
Uncle Vernon: Richard Griffiths
Molly Weasley: Julie Walters
Percy Weasley: Chris Rankin
Fred Weasley: James Phelps
George Weasley: Oliver Phelps
Draco Malfoy: Tom Felton
Professor Snape: Alan Rickman
Dobby: Toby Jones
Gilderoy Lockhart: Kenneth Branagh
Moaning Myrtle: Shirley Henderson
Tom Riddle: Christian Coulson

Harry: What's a mudblood?
Hermione: It means dirty blood. Mudblood's a really foul name for someone who's muggle born. Someone with non-magic parents. Someone like me. It's not a term one usually hears in civilized conversation.
Hagrid: See the thing is, Harry, there are some wizards, like the Malfoy family, who think they're better than others because they're what people call "pure blood."
Harry: That's horrible!
Ron: It's disgusting.
Hagrid: And it's codswallop to boot. "Dirty blood." Why, there isn't a wizard alive today who's not half-blood or less. More to the point, they've yet to think of a spell that our Hermione can't do. Don't you think on it, Hermione. Don't you think on it for one minute.

All right, those who know me know I give Chris Columbus a lot of crap. He is definitely on my list of least favorite directors. However, that being said he did great things for the Harry Potter franchise – just not in terms of directing.

While the character of Harry Potter has not yet entrenched itself as wholly and globally as something like Superman (you’ll see kids in jungles with no technology wearing a Superman shirt) almost anyone can tell you the basic concept of the series; the secret world of wizards that coexists with our own and Harry is the main character against a villain that no one will name. At least that’s as basic as I’ve had it described to me by people who have never read the books or really paid attention to the movie. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is the first book/film in the series and chronicles Harry’s first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry and what begins to happen to Harry’s life when he starts to uncover the truth of his magical lineage.

Chris Columbus drives me nuts as a director because he somehow manages to insert no feeling or vibrancy into his work, he also doesn’t do background action well; Columbus is also a director that does not like the darker side of themes, but likes the cheery, easily explained side of life. All of this shows in The Sorcerer’s Stone. Though it is a good movie, it falls flat on many levels because of the directing. I remember seeing the movie for the first time (without having read the books) and thinking that I didn’t understand why Harry was important and why the Voldemort guy was so scary. All of that becomes the fault of the director.

What saves the entire Potter franchise and Columbus’s films is the fact that the man is a very good producer. I give him enormous kudos for being phenomenal at finding the right actors for the right part and for putting an excellent team of behind the scenes crew together. That is the reason the franchise works and the first two films are viewable. Columbus himself has less style and panache than even Brett Rattner, but he is saved by his skill at producing.

I must also give Columbus kudos for being the first director to bring Harry Potter off the page and into reality. While it is true that Harry’s world and ours overlap the magical world and all of its characters are entirely different than anything that has been seen onscreen before. Columbus had to invent how it would look to have living portraits, students that would fly on broomsticks in a game called quidditch, and even what it should look like to teach magic. He had to translate J.K. Rowling’s rules to screen without anything but some words on a page to guide him. I can tell you from experience how difficult translating words to images can be; writer’s don’t have to think about the physics of actually doing, they only have to put the words down and then float them off to the director who must now take those abstract words and make them reality. It’s tough, no matter how much special effects and CGI you have access to and it’s something you can’t quite fully understand unless you’ve done it yourself. I can’t imagine the pressure Columbus was under knowing that billions of fans were waiting to see their beloved world come to life.

In the end Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is still a good, but lack luster movie. If it were not the first in a franchise but instead a standalone film it would have been a entertaining but forgettable film; however, since it does have 7 other films to follow it Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone instead just feels like a slow start.

Director: Chris Columbus
Writer: Steve Kloves
Harry Potter: Daniel Radcliffe
Ron Weasley: Rupert Grint
Hermione Granger: Emma Watson
Professor Dumbledore: Richard Harris
Professor McGonagall: Maggie Smith
Hagrid: Robbie Coltrane
Aunt Petunia: Fiona Shaw
Dudley: Harry Melling
Uncle Vernon: Richard Griffiths
Professor Quirrell: Ian hart
Molly Weasley: Julie Walters
Percy Weasley: Chris Rankin
Fred Weasley: James Phelps
George Weasley: Oliver Phelps
Neville Longbottom: Matthew Lewis
Draco Malfoy: Tom Felton
Nearly Headless Nick: John Cleese
Professor Snape: Alan Rickman

Ron: It's spooky! She knows more about you than you do!
Harry: Who doesn't?