Ron’s Victory by Nicholas Hooper Harry Potter And... • The Automaton

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Ron’s Victory by Nicholas Hooper
Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince

David Yates’s sophomore outing in the Harry Potter film series failed to dethrone Alfonso Cuaron’s undeniably movie-magical Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban as my top favorite, BUT I do consider it second best. Sure, there are less set pieces this time around, but the lack of action (which most people cite as their reason for concluding that Transformers 2 is way better) is more than made up for by some awesome acting (Alan Rickman, Jim Broadbent, Michael Gambon), mind-blowing cinematography (courtesy of Amelie’s Bruno Delbonnel, for whom an Oscar nod is in order) and a fantastic score by Nicholas Hooper.

When it comes to Harry Potter music, John Williams’s score for Prisoner Of Azkaban is definitely the one to beat. Neither his own pieces from the first two movies nor Patrick Doyle and Hooper’s scores for Goblet Of Fire and Order Of The Phoenix, respectively, could hold a candle to his wicked Azkaban notes. Hooper sort of acknowledges this in his score for Half-Blood Prince, which I’ve also awarded the honor of being second best after listening to it for hours on end, as he alludes to Williams’s Quidditch, Third Year in the latest film’s sport-on-phallic-broomsticks scene with a track aptly titled Ron’s Victory.