Harry Potter’s sixth screen adventure probably won’t bewitch any newcomers to JK Rowling’s globe-conquering saga, but for viewers who’ve followed the young wizard’s exploits over the past decade, David Yates’s film casts a potent spell. Be warned, though: with Daniel Radcliffe’s Harry preoccupied with the coming showdown with evil Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes), the film’s overall mood is very dark.
Most of the narrative is taken up with Harry’s efforts, aided by Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore (Michael Gambon), to uncover crucial information about Voldemort’s past – a task that involves winkling a key memory from the mind of veteran professor Horace Slughorn (played by one of the few Brit thesps not to have appeared in the series so far – Jim Broadbent). Some fans of the book won’t like the way the filmmakers have tinkered with the plot, but the spellbinding special effects Yates and his team have conjured up – including the spectacular destruction of the Millennium Bridge pictured here – still take the viewer’s breath away.
Released 7th December.
