As Harry Potter 6 is the biggest movie of the year, taking over $929 million dollars at cinemas around the world, there’s a damn good chance you’ve already seen it. If not, and you want to know more about the film itself, then head over to our cinema review, as here I thought it’d be best to talk about the Blu-ray experience, as it’s a bit of a corker.
First up, there’s the picture and sound quality, which are absolutely magnificent. Warner seems to have taken excellent care of the HD transfer, ensuring it’s absolutely pin sharp, with virtually no grain and superb contrast. It particularly important with this film, because with Voldemort back, the movie is kept deliberately dark, as if the colour has been drained from Hogwarts by the Dark Lord’s return. As a result, an excellent handling of blacks and greys is essential to stop the whole movie seeming rather drab. It is actually a beautifully rendered world, and the Blu-ray shows that off to superb effect.
The dark colours tend to be contrasted with pools of bright light and vivid colours, and the HD transfer handles this excellently, with nice sharp divides between brightest bursts of brilliant reds and the moody shadows of the background.
Likewise the audio is very good and will certainly give your speakers a decent workout. Some of the surround effects are rather eerie and very impressive, while the dialogue is crystal clear and you really get a sense of what a dense aural experience Harry Potter is. Few film series have ever created an entire idiosyncratic world as well as the Hogwarts films have, and it’s great to wallow in it for a couple of hours with such great sound and audio as the Blu-ray provides.
However the fun doesn’t end there. The Blu-ray release includes all the features from the DVD version, which include a decent selection of extras, such as a featurette that whizzes you through a year in the life of J.K. Rowling, some lightning fast Q&As with the cast and crew, a few deleted scenes and a sneak peak at The Wizard World Of Harry Potter, which is opening next year as part of Universal Studios Orlando. While that’s all very nice, it’s on the Blu-ray exclusive stuff that things get really interesting.
First off is the rather entertaining, half-hour ‘Close-Up’ documentary, where different members of the cast look into different aspects of the movie. For example Daniel Radcliffe goes into the editing booth, while Rupert Grint is on stunt training duty, and Emma Watson handles the make-up. It’s one of the better looks behind-the-scenes of a Harry Potter movie we’ve had so far, with earlier DVD and Blu-ray releases feeling a little lightweight on this score. It’s certainly worth a watch and includes plenty of interesting info.
However the star attraction is the Maximum Movie Mode. This consists of a series of picture-in-picture video and images, where the cast and crew pop up on screen during the movie to talk about the making of the film and the journey of the characters. There’s also concept art comparing the original ideas with the finished film, as well as image galleries, behind-the-scenes footage and also sorts of interesting nuggets like visual effects breakdowns, so you can see the different stages the CGI went through as you watch the movie. If all that weren’t enough, there are also Focus Points featurettes, where you click the remote at the right time and it takes you into a behind-the-scenes look at the film, ranging from recreating the Harry Potter world on location to the surprisingly complex creation of the cave at the end of the movie.
While it’s best to switch on the Maximum Movie Mode and watch it as an accompaniment to the film, because it’s absolutely superb and offers endless amounts of fantastic info and behind-the-scene nuggets, you also have the option of viewing the featurettes on their own, separate to the movie. The Maximum Movie Mode is a hell of a lot better and more enlightening than a boring audio commentary, and a must-see for real Harry Potter fans.
Finally on the extras front there is the first trailer for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, some ‘One Minute Drills’ where the cast briefly have to sum up their characters, and access to even more features through BD-Live. The Blu-ray release even includes the film on DVD, as well as a bonus digital copy, so you have pretty much all possible viewing options covered in one package.
It’s an absolutely excellent selection and ensures that on pretty much every score, Harry Potter And The Half Blood Prince is a superb Blu-ray release. It’s a film that really gives fans a wonderful Harry Potter experience, and works as a great showcase for what BD has to over DVD, both in terms of picture and sound quality, as well as showing off the sort of fascinating advanced features that the format can offer.
Overall Verdict: A superb release that scores on highly on picture, sounds and excellent special features. The film’s pretty good too.
Special Features:
Maximum Movie Mode
Sneak Peak At The Harry Potter Wizarding World Of Adventure
One-Minute Drills
‘Close-Up’ Documentary
‘J.K. Rowling: A Year In The Life’ Featurette
‘What’s On Your Mind’ Featurette
Deleted Scenes
Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Trailer
DVD and Bonus Digital Copy Of The Film
BD-Live
Reviewer: Tim Isaac
