We're marking time before the final battle between Good and Evil, with the promised darkness sitting somewhat clumsily with teen romance and humour.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
New York Magazine (Vulture) by David Edelstein
It was splendid! No, it’s not a larky kid-pic. We're firmly in the realm of English horror.
The Hollywood Reporter by Kirk Honeycutt
David Yates, in his go at the helm, throws the emphasis on the gathering storm clouds even as Harry and his fellow wizardry students make further discoveries involving the opposite sex.
Entertainment Weekly by Lisa Schwarzbaum
But the story is, still and all, only a pause, deferring an intensely anticipated conclusion. And it's in that exquisite place of action and waiting that this elegantly balanced production emerges as a model adaptation.
Chicago Tribune by Michael Phillips
The latest, meticulously atmospheric and wonderfully acted Potter adventure lands happily--broodingly, but happily---near the top of the series heap, just behind Alfonso Cuaron's "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban."
Baltimore Sun by Michael Sragow
It flows like fast-moving lava to a climax filled with pyrotechnics. And for once in a summer blockbuster, the fireworks are both emotional and physical. The movie leaves you sated, yet wanting more -- just what you want from a series with two entries left to go.
Christian Science Monitor by Peter Rainer
There's something inherently funny about the romantic predicament of Harry and Ron and Hermione. As if it wasn't bad enough having to deal with the Dark Lord and the Death Eaters and all the rest, now they have to square off against... raging hormones.
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
I admired this Harry Potter. It opens and closes well, and has wondrous art design and cinematography as always, only more so.
Dazzlingly well made and perhaps deliberately less fanciful than the previous entries, this one is played in a mode closer to palpable life-or-death drama than any of the others and is quite effective as such.
Installment six of the Harry Potter’ series, The Half-Blood Prince, merely gets us one movie closer to the finale, which, apparently is so big (and by big, I mean “$$$$’’) that it’s being split into two parts.