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http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/07/15/movies/15harry.html

How does this review embarrass its author? Let me count the ways:

1) It says that director David Yates “does a fine job…nimbly shifting between the action and the adolescent soap operatics.” There is nothing nimble about Yates’s direction in this plodding, perpetually-missing-the-point effort, whose pacing is at best poor execution and at worst mind-blowing incompetence. That Yates did slightly better in this latest installment than in its predecessor is hardly saying much.

2) It says that screenwriter Steve Kloves “has done an admirable job” of adapting the source material. The truth is that every Potter script Kloves has penned has been weak to one degree or another — something I’m happy to forgive, considering the difficulty of the task — but this was by far the weakest of his efforts, filled with baldly irrational departures from canon and clumsy writing of pivotal character scenes.

3) It refers to actor Michael Gambon, who plays Albus Dumbledore, as “invaluable.” In fact, it would be hard to overestimate how thoroughly Gambon has failed to grasp the essence of the character he plays. (It’s really too bad that Richard Harris, who did a substantially better job with Dumbledore in the first two films, died before he could play out this critical part for the series.)

4) It calls young actors Hero Fiennes Tiffin and Frank Dillane, who play Tom Riddle, “excellent.” It’s hard to blame them for what is likely Yates’s and Kloves’s fault, but really, nearly every detail of their portrayal of this character is wrong. Christian Coulson, too old for the part now, was far better.

The funny thing is that the review isn’t a positive one at all — but it seems that the reviewer felt compelled to throw the filmmakers a proverbial bone while concluding that Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is “an afterthought” and “filler,” while its stars “have grown up into three prettily manicured bores.” Indeed, the review perhaps undersells the series’s anchoring trio just a bit; I agree Rupert Grint is a waste of screen time (and has been for years), but Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson have developed a decent on-screen chemistry, and their scenes together are among the few bright spots in this otherwise tedious and uninspiring endeavor.