I am a fan of the books, and hold great affection for the characters, but I can't blame you guys for coming away from films 5 and 6 with the feelings you have. I do like them, but they are a low ebb in the movie series.
Further on this topic...
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (7/10)
The Harry Potter movies started taking a darker turn with Prisoner of Azkaban — and now descend much further into darkness with this film, which climaxes with the death of a major character. That Rowling's books grow darker is fine -- actually it is a virtue, as the books appear to be cleverly designed to mature with the reader. David Yates' approach to this particular story however seems at times excessively morose.
This is an even more “interior” film than The Order of the Phoenix, with few large-scale set pieces, and as a result is the smallest in scope of all the movies so far. Its primary strength lies in the depiction of the story's
non-magical plot elements, which follow the lead characters as they the negotiate the onslaught of bittersweet romances as young adults (with love potions complicating these matters even further). Indeed one of the more captivating aspects of this film is how it has the viewer wondering who will wind-up with whom. Daniel Radcliffe has a genuine chemistry with Bonnie Wright and all of their scenes have a touching luminosity.
Jim Broadbent is terrific in the role of Professor Slughorm; that said, I do wish a bit that another actor had been cast — Jim Broadbent is great, but he's been in so many things (and he was
already Professor Kirk in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe).
Dumbledore, hitherto a juggernaut of magical ability and impossible to outsmart, now falters in uncertainty and exhibits weakness. It is a troubling but highly-effective development in his character arc, and contributes to the sense of creeping doom which now pervades the stories. However, the script (again) does not address some reasonable questions a viewer unfamiliar with the book might have — like how and why is Professor Snape the titular “Half-Blood Prince”? Is he half-muggle? Is he literally a “prince” or is that a figurative term?
This is also the least-attractive looking of all the Potter films. Cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel goes for a very minimalist lighting style, in which every scene is is either lit with in an intense, “burnished amber” hue, tinted an ugly green or simply relegated to a drab (almost monochromatic) color palette…
The photographic approach is not without effectiveness, but it is mostly cheerless and "unmagical". I understand the the need to reflect the story's atmosphere of dread -- but the film could accomplish this without being a two-hour eyesore. Besides, the lack variety in the lighting simply gets boring after a while. (Ironically, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was the only Potter film whose photography got an Oscar nomination.)
On a more "atmospheric" level, Hogwarts is an increasingly austere environment, where all the enchanted embellishments of earlier Potter movies -- ghosts, sweets with magical properties, floating library books, owls delivering mail, magical hobbies and other touches which made Hogwarts someplace the viewer longed to inhabit -- are simply gone (many of these things are still in the book, but not the movie).
Yates' greatest strength is in the moments of character intimacy, which he handles with delicate effectiveness — in particular the growing affection between Harry and Ginny, and Hermione and Ron (whose relationship is a slightly harder sell). Draco Malfoy’s character arc is also effectively depicted in this film, as he evolves from spoiled brat to reluctant assassin — and his hesitance to embrace the “dark side” suggests there may be hope for him. On the other hand, the tragic climax of the film personally left me a bit cold. It is morose, but not as horrific and devastating as it should be -- mostly due to the lackluster and emotionally-sedate way it is scored.
Further on the music, at this point I really have to start carping. While I respect Nicholas Hooper (who is talented and does a good job), his scores -- and Doyle's score -- are not what you'd call
outstanding. There is only one John Williams of course, but there are a lot of people who are far-more talented who could have been given the job. And when you consider all of the amazingly talented composers working in Britain at the time — with impressive credits, like Trevor Jones, George Fenton, Rachel Portman, etc. — it’s a head-scratcher that Hooper got the job. Even if Warner’s was trying to save money by recruiting someone from the "telly”, they seriously felt Hooper was a better choice than people like Carl Davis, Patrick Gowers or Richard Harvey?
But also, John Williams' music for the original film was a vital component in telling the story, and a huge factor in the film's overall character. By this point, the use of music in the Potter films is avoided as much as possible. Yates of course is a product of British television, where music usage tends to be minimal (and stylistically streamlined), and it appears his views on scoring have been ported over from that medium. This too makes Half-Blood Price feel "smaller" than the previous movies.
All things considered, David Yates
is an excellent director of actors, with an expert faculty for visual storytelling. I think the problem here as the he just isn't suited to the fantasy genre. It often seems to me that his approach to Harry Potter is to consciously
avoid the fanciful as much as possible, as if this will somehow make the story "more believable". But the lack of nostalgic, fairy tale charm, blended with the decidedly smaller scale of this film, render this the least-appealing of all the Potter movies. But for the presence of the same cast, this could almost be a "direct-to-video" sequel.
This is a CATASTROPHIC FAILURE on every conceivable level, the kind of film that can only come from a genuinely talented filmmaker allowed free reign to make anything he wants, and who basically comes up with the car that Homer Simpson designed that bankrupted his half-brother Herb's company. 
