When I first saw the film two years ago, I concluded that Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was my least favorite of the series (original theatrical review). Looking back at the films, I've amended that somewhat. The Chamber of Secrets is arguably the worst film in the franchise (keeping in mind that I like them all), and The Half-Blood Prince is what it always was: a good entry in the franchise that suffers from (in my opinion) the choice to edit out much of what made the original book worthwhile. At the time, I gave the film much grief for how it handled the climactic plot twist, rendering what I remember being shocking and unexpected in the book something that was all-but preordained. But the movie is not the book. Whatever issues I have with the film as an adaptation of a novel that I was quite fond of, the film itself remains a solid piece of character-driven fantasy. Like The Goblet of Fire, The Half-Blood Prince arguably was judged harsher than it should have been because it was among my favorite of the books. I still have problems with the film, but that should be kept separate from my problems regarding its worth as an adaptation.
