To be perfectly honest, I believe that this was the first Potter film that I actually enjoyed more than the book. The Half-Blood Prince book was dreary and lacked a lot of the heart and personality that the other books showed, but the film was able to keep things interesting with good pacing and fun dialogue.
Yes, some facts (mostly concerning a lot of the research Harry and co. does in their search to discover the identity of the Half-Blood Prince) are left out as per usual in book-to-film transition, but I didn't think that would have been necessary for the audience. The "revelation" is more suitable for the medium because it saves time and is no less significant.
Anyway, the air of mystery surrounding certain characters never failed to keep me interested, the acting was great, and the dialogue was witty and well done. My only problem with Half-Blood Prince was that the end felt a bit rushed and a lot less dramatic than the book described. Yes, I read that Yates had plans to move a "certain event" to the beginning of the next film, but I really think that the ending would have greatly benefited from the battle the Death Eaters had with the Order at the end of the book. It just seemed all too easy in the film.
I am awarding Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince four stars out of five for being interesting and well done, but lacking the drama and excitement that we see at the end of the book.
I have heard a lot of criticism from my friends about how they believed the movie was boring and uneventful, but I really just think that their problems stemmed from Rowling's writing and their own ideas rather than the film itself. When you make a movie that is based off of a source and you actually care about staying true to the source as much as possible (mainly due to time constraints) then there isn't much room to do tampering. I've seen that situation go wrong in films way too many times to condone it. But that's just my two cents.
