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One of the darker, more personal Harry Potter films, The Half-Blood Prince represents the penultimate cinematic adventure for the boy wizard before the grand finale of The Deathly Hallows. Prince is an exceptionally dark film, both literally and metaphysically, and I’d be careful about the younger viewers seeing this – death and darkness spread across the film’s frames like a blanket, enveloping the audience in an oppressive, suffocating layer of tension. The ending, a shocker of a cliffhanger for those who haven’t read the books, delivers the required emotional punch as the catalyst for what will follow in the 2-part Deathly Hallows, and while I’d like to spend a bit of time yakking about it, I’m not going to for fear of spoiling the treat that awaits the virgin viewer. The central question to the film, outside of whether or not Voldemort is going to appear, is exactly who is the “half-blood prince”, and what does he have to do with Harry Potter? While the answer to that question isn’t as exciting as the question itself, the journey to find the answer is. Emotionally wrought, alternately sad and uplifting, the Potter kids go through the wringer in this one, and it’s easy to see why this is up there for one of the most popular of the franchises’ entries.

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Okay, so you’ve sat through hours of Harry Potter films during the past decade or so, perhaps even read the books, and perhaps even own them all on disc to re-watch whenever the mood takes you. After all your emotional investment in Harry Potter, in his quest to defeat the evil Voldemort, you want there to be a big, unholy smackdown between the two in which buildings topple and continents shudder, right? This finale, this conflict, has been brewing ever since Voldemorts horrifyingly CGI’d face appeared on the back end of Ian Hart’s head in The Philosopher’s Stone. Sorry US readers, I’m sticking with the original, gentrified title of Rowling’s original novel. And in ten years, we’ve had time to get ready for the most anticipated closing cinema brawl since Yoda-vs-The Emperor. Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 2, in which the final fate of both Potter, Voldemort, and the rest of the Wizarding world is revealed, sweeps across the screen with the magical dervish of all the cinematic magic Hollywood can muster. And boy, when Hollywood wants to, it can really pull out all the stops. But is the finale a fitting one? Is it worthy of all this buildup, all the secretive machinations of the characters, all the pulling and tugging of wands and broomsticks we’ve had since those damned letters arrived at Privet Drive?

Click here to finish your Harry Potter Journey….

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And here I always thought Harry Potter was a kids series. The Deathly Hallows Part 1, the subtitle nomenclature of this installment in the Harry Potter film series, follows the gradually darkening narrative of the franchise overall as we get set for Part 2′s showdown between title character Potter, and series’ arch-nemesis Voldemort. Over the last decade, we’ve seen Harry and his friends, Ron and Hermione, develop from young kids to mature adults, as well as the tone of the series moving from light-hearted fantasy to dark, quite scary overtones – it’s perhaps the series one greatest asset, in that as the audience has grown, so to has our acceptance of Harry’s intended plight. Voldemort, lurking in the shadows for much of the series, has finally come to be flesh in the last few installments, going toe-to-toe with Potter on a number of occasions, although the final battle is yet to take place. We’ve seen Harry overcome some significant obstacles and riddles along the journey, as he transitions from innocent child to full manifestation of The Chosen One, he who will battle Voldemort for the fate of the world. I can’t say I always enjoyed the first few Potter films as much as I’ve enjoyed watching the films become more realistic (if that’s possible in a world of Wizards and Magic) and tangible in tonality, which I think has elevated the Potter franchise from merely a series of mildly interconnected Saturday-afternoon adventures to a fully-fleshed out world of danger and deception. Aside from the worlds fascination with all things Potter, is Part 1 of The Deathly Hallows actually a good film? Will it stand up to the test of time in years to come, once Potter-mania has subsided and we’ve all found a new franchise to follow?

Click here to enter Hogwarts for the second-last time!

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The fifth instalment in the Harry Potter franchise takes us into darker and darker places than anything that’s come before it. When Harry and his cousin Dudley are attacked by Dementors from Azkaban, Harry saves him from certain death by using his magic: something which is forbidden in the real world by the Ministry Of Magic. Placed on trial, and defended by Dumbledore, political motivations running deeper within the Ministry seem to indicate a change of power balance at Hogwarts in on the cards.

To continue reading about The Order Of The Phoenix, click here!!!

The fourth outing for Harry Potter see’s the young wizard and his friends enter a darker, more mature world than any we’ve previously seen from Rowlings characters. As Harry, Ron and Hermione get older, their maturity shows, and their adventures get more and more complex and thematically darker.

The next kid who sits on my knee and tells me what they want for Christmas gets a fat lip, understand?

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The third entry into the Harry Potter film series sees a new director, a different direction, and a more realistic and naturalistic film intent on delivering some shocks, magic and a sense of awe.

Hide and Seek, wizard style.

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Laborious, visually rich sequel to 2001′s Harry Potter & The Philosopher’s Stone, which sees Harry, Ron and Hermione return to Howarts for further adventures and discoveries.

Harry realises, too late, that he has wandered into the set of The Addams Family.

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Long, magical and glowing with an inner cinematic beauty, JK Rowlings boy wizard is faithfully brought to the big screen in this, the first film in the Harry Potter series. Harry Potter, a character in a set of books of the same name, is a young lad who, one day, finds out that he’s not actually a normal boy, but is in fact, a wizard. his parents were wizards, his family is legendary in wizarding circles, and by crikey, he’s about to get some kind of an education.

He was quite used to snuggling, thankyou very much.

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