Harry Potter fans started lining up at 4 p.m. Tuesday to get good seats for the sold-out midnight premiere of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.”

By 9 p.m., hundreds of people waited anxiously for the movie magic to come.

Fans of all ages, some in Hogwarts costumes, chatted about their love of the Harry Potter series and what would or would not be included in this film version.

At 11 p.m., fans were let in to scramble for the best seats. More often than not, people in groups were unable to sit together unless they were lucky enough to have been the first in the theater. This didn’t matter as much when the lights went down and applause broke out at the sight of the Harry Potter title.

The film starts by following the book fairly well and getting right into the story. The main characters — Harry, Hermione, Ron and Draco — no longer look like the youth seen in “The Sorcerer’s Stone.” The actors are still passably believable as their 16-year-old characters, but their maturity is readily noticeable.

The story content has matured as well. Not so well-concealed sexual innuendos are slipped into the dialogue, and love stories abound as the plot tries to unfold. Unfortunately, with all this character development and sly jokes, the much-needed parts of the plot that allow for understanding of the story — at least from the perspective of those who have read the books — are not granted a great deal of screen time.

In lieu of explaining more of the magical memories that put Harry on the path to discovering the Horcruxes, the history of Voldemort or Snape’s background, too much screen time is given to developing Harry and Ginny’s romance, which could have been done in just a couple of minutes.

The audience is also given Quidditch this time around. The game looks as entertaining as ever, flying about and bashing each other with bats, balls and bodies; though its time would have been better spent focusing on plot details that set up the next two films.

The characters develop excellently, and the viewer is finally forced to see the characters of the Potterverse as people who have the same difficulties with growing up, love and loss as anyone else. The scenes are artistically crafted to make the world of wizards and witches beautiful to behold, even in the darker and more destructive bits.

Now for the real let down: At the end of the book, there is a large battle between the Death Eaters and the Order of the Phoenix. In the movie there isn’t. There is no big climatic fight scene. In fact, there is hardly any climax at all. Earlier in the film there is a small fight in a field outside of the Weasleys’ home that did not happen in the book. This did nothing for the plot, nor to advance the story, and wasn’t exciting.

For those who have never read the books, good luck understanding everything that is going on and what is to come as this fantastic series comes to a close. Makers of movies based on books have no choice but to cut portions of the book. The Harry Potter movies have done an OK job of this by assuming that everyone has read the books and will be able to follow along and enjoy the films without the required reading.

Unfortunately, “The Half-Blood Prince” leaves out too much plot to appease fans this time and leaves newcomers with some daunting future questions.

All of this may make the movie sound less than great, but it is still very much worth the watch. It’s hard to please hard-core fans and newcomers alike, and this film just straddles the line trying to pander to everyone. The biggest problem, the Half-Blood Prince looked more like Harry Potter 90210 than an adventure into the world of the fantasy.