Harry Potter and the Half-Baked Flick

This article was originally published online on Jul 29.

There is a curious breed of person for whom Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which opened Wednesday, is new material. Bleary-eyed, paranoid, misguidedly noble, this breed has halted all Potterland talk over the past few months, perhaps with a slight twitch: “I’m waiting for the movie to come out.” It is for him that the traditional review would be necessary, but then he’d probably never read this anyway, out of a desire to avoid “spoilers.” A Sisyphean task, usually, but I think he’s up to it — illiteracy has its advantages.