Everybody’s favorite wizard is back with a bang

“Half-Blood” is a full-blooded installment in the Harry Potter movie canon. Meaning, it shares the traits of the previous blockbusters, based on the insanely bestselling J.K. Rowling fantasy-adventure novels.

Like its five big screen precursors, which have earned a collective $4.5 billion (!) worldwide, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” is essentially a filmed book. It has been fashioned to please already-invested Potter-heads who want to see their favorite characters and passages come to life once more — not necessarily to stand on its own as a self-contained motion picture.

The movies continue to be very well-made technically, with consistently beautiful cinematography and production design and occasionally mind-blowing special effects. And while this one is too long (as always) and the exhausting duel between the consecrated boy wizard and the dark lord Voldemort continues to seem artificially drawn-out and repetitive, we still care very much about what happens to the large, brilliant cast of young and old enchanters, It helps that the elders are played by such uncommon Brit character actors as Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon, Helena Bonham Carter and the newly added potions professor Jim Broadbent.

Based on the penultimate book in the series — the final book “Deathly Hollows” will be made into two films planned for release in 2010 and 2011 — “Prince” comes from two “Harry” film veterans, director David Yates and screenwriter Steve Kloves.

As the Hogwarts student trio of Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) and Hermione Granger (Emma Watson) got older and the war between good and evil got deadlier, the movies got darker. The last two were rated PG-13. But today’s episode gets a PG — probably by design, for commercial reasons. The main story line remains morbid, but it is a tad less visually graphic.

The plot details how a young Voldemort/Tom Riddle literally lost his soul — and it split into soul fragments, “horcrux,” that could be the keys to defeating him. But there’s plenty of humorous teenage romantic angst to lighten the load.

Harry pines for Ron’s now grown little sister Ginny (Bonnie Wright). Hermione wants the dim-witted Ron. Both are thwarted by rivals for their respective affections. There’s a luck potion, a love potion, a quidditch match, “snogging” (American translation: making out) and other fun distractions. But then the perennially obnoxious classmate Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton) and the morally dubious professor Severus Snape (Alan Rickman) will figure into the unfortunate fate of one of the series most beloved figures.

Even with that major downer, if you’ve read the books and/or seen the other movies, you’ll want to catch “The Half-Blood Prince.” Radcliffe’s Harry remains a humble, immensely likable hero despite the Hollywood hoopla that is always surrounding him.