MANILA, Philippines ? While J.K. Rowling may have ended the Harry Potter series of novels with 2007?s ?Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,? for Potterites, the word still continues to be made flesh on the big screen.

So it is with David Yates? second assay in the hugely successful movie franchise: ?Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,? where Harry and his friends buck the return of the Dark Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters to show viewers a quite common affair whether you are a wizard or a muggle?growing up.

But screenplay writer Steve Kloves, returning to the writing board after a hiatus (?Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix? was adapted for film by Michael Goldenberg), does more than narrate the insanities and inanities of being 17.

The film comes across as a streamlined version of an increasingly darker tale. This, despite the fifth and sixth books being a lull in Rowling?s storytelling, after a very fiery ?Goblet.?

Trim and grim

In ?Prince,? we learn more of Voldemort?s origins and maybe weaknesses, by way of Harry?s private tutelage under Professor Dumbledore. The pair seeks out ways to vanquish Voldemort once and for all by sorting through people?s memories.

Kloves trims much of the story. We are deprived, for example, of the interesting story of the Gaunts, the last descendants of Salazar Slytherin, from whose bloodline Tom Riddle?s mother comes.

Given the long-winded conversations between Harry and Dumbledore, and quite a number of flashbacks in the book, that might be a wise call. At last, there is enough material left for a 153-minute gathering of steam for what has already been revealed as a two-part finale.

This is because ?Prince? is far from the short calm before a storm. Hogwarts castle is gripped with paranoia. In previous ?Potter? books, we learned Hogwarts might be the safest place against evil in the wizard world. Not this time.

Voldemort?s Death Eaters are surreptitiously working to get inside the walls with the help of Draco Malfoy, Harry?s long-time school nemesis.

The precarious situation is further weakened by Dumbledore?s frequent absences as he goes after suspected horcruxes?objects infused with a part of the Dark Lord?s soul.

Onscreen, we are given a taste of how nasty an evil wizard can get right at the prologue, when Bellatrix L?estrange (the always wonderful Helena Bonham-Carter); Fenrir Greyback (newcomer Dave Legano); and a third Death Eater storm through London, wrecking the iconic Millennium Bridge on their way to Diagon Alley to nab Mr. Ollivander in his own shop.

The Death Eaters also make their presence felt in the destruction of the Burrow, where Bellatrix teases a chase out of Harry, Ginny, Lupin and Mr. Weasly into a wet cornfield, leaving the Burrow exposed and unprotected.

Half-Blood who?

It might be redundant or superfluous to say the sixth novel introduces a mysterious character known only as the Half-Blood Prince. After all, we only get to know him, through an old book off the Potions shelf, as a prodigious student who perfected his own potions and created his own spells.

In the book, the search for the identity of the Half-Blood Prince arguably feels like a verbosity that cannot hold interest as much as the horcruxes or the Death Eater activities do, aside from a fleeting feeling of whodunit

The filmmakers seem to be of the same opinion, cutting the Prince?s story off the reel. To the unlearned in ?Potter? lore, the revelation in the end will undoubtedly feel like a deus ex machina, albeit a very weak one viewers can write off.

Radcliffe delivers

After six films, lead actors Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson , and Rupert Grint have come into their own, much, much further than what director Alfonso Cuaron was able to whip out of them for ?Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.? How they have grown!

Sporting a cleaner haircut, Radcliffe is now able to move in his character like a second skin, delivering deadpans like the acting giants he shares the set with.

Watson portrays without effort a young woman scorned, giving Hermione a touch of steel to go with the dejections of unrequited love.

New names add to the already stellar cast: Helen McCrory, who gives the right amount of elegance to a desperate Narcissa Malfoy; and Jim Broadbent, one of England?s most versatile actors, who comes in as Horace Slughorn, backseat leech to the famous and powerful.

Most notable, perhaps, is the cold portrayal by young Hero Fiennes Tiffin of the 11-year-old Tom Marvolo Riddle, who has an unsettling sinister aura just by the way he speaks.

If there is any one of the seven books where Harry Potter really grows up, it is in ?Half-Blood Prince.? What Dumbledore?s ?private lessons? instill is that he must learn to walk on his own.

In the end, there is a certain serenity in the sullenness that envelopes the wizard world. For Harry, Hermione and Ron, the mantle has passed, and resignedly they look into the horizon sure only of one thing: There are things they ought to finish.

The film version streamlines the book, which may disappoint fans. But it leaves enough intriguing material for the next two-movie climax.