As we approach the opening of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, Pop Goes The World, will take a look back at each of the Harry Potter films, today we re-explore Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

David Yates second Harry Potter effort is much better than his first outing Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Yates manages the capture the dark tone of the novel and embues the film with a lot dark/grey tones.

While some people didn’t like the over emphasis on the teen romance of the sixth film, I actually liked it – I am a romantic after all. Did love the whole Harry-Ginny (Daniel Radcliffe and Bonnie Wright) romance even though their first kiss was supposed to be after a Quidditch match and not in the Room of Requirement.

I also love the fact that we finally get see Hermione (Emma Watson) express her feelings for Ron (Rupert Grint), even though Ron seems to be oblivious to her feelings as he was busy at first snogging Lavendar Brown (a perfect Jessie Cave) and then avoiding her. The scene in the hospital ward after Ron get poisoned was exactly how I pictured in from the novel so bravo Steve Kloves.

Also kudos to Kloves for giving increase screen time to Bonnie Wright as Ginny (she even gets her name in the credits as part of the main ones) and to Tom Felton as Draco Malfoy -he really hit it out of the park in this one.

Jim Broadbent was also perfectly cast as Slughorn. And despite what Daniel Radcliffe is saying, I really liked his performance in this one, especially in his scenes where he is on Felix Felicis.

However, boo to Kloves for not even giving us a scene of Snape (Alan Rickman) as the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. Also, more Narcissa Malfoy (Helen McCrory -she barely had one line). Even worse, Timothy Spall (Pettigrew) and Gemma Jones (Madame Pomfrey) had zero lines.

I was okay with Kloves cutting down the Voldemort flashbacks and thought the two people that played the young Voldemort (Hero Fiennes-Tiffin and Frank Dillance) was chilling. This is were we also learn about Horcruxes.

The effects are good here, the Infiri were creepy and the Quidditch scenes were great and bravo to Evanna Lynch for designed such a great lion headdress for the Quidditch scenes.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is one of my favourite film versions and sets us up for Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 1 and 2.