Harry: "I thought you knew what you’d signed up for."
Ron: "Yeah, I thought I did too."
Harry: "So what part of it isn't living up to your expectations? Did you think we’d be staying in five-star hotels? Finding a Horcrux every other day? Did you think you’d be back to Mummy by Christmas?"
-The war against the Dark Lord begins…
Sideshow Bob: “The greatest murder since Snape killed Dumbledore!”
Bart: “Oh, I haven't gotten to that part yet!”
Sideshow Bob: “It's a four-year-old book!”
Bart: “I'm a slow reader.”
-The Simpsons, discussing the last book and the importance of spoilers
Sideshow Bob: “The greatest murder since Snape killed Dumbledore!”
Bart: “Oh, I haven't gotten to that part yet!”
Sideshow Bob: “It's a four-year-old book!”
Bart: “I'm a slow reader.”
-The Simpsons, discussing the last book and the importance of spoilers
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I is all tease, zero payoff. No investment banker left standing could fail to applaud the studio's initiative in halving the seventh and last book in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series to squeeze the goose for more gold. But a movie that plays like a 146-minute trailer for the actual final chapter — Part II opens next July in 3D! — is a definite cheat.”
-Peter Travers, RollingStone.com
-Peter Travers, RollingStone.com
“Sure, in terms of action and plot events, not a heck of a lot happens. But we get to see the characters raw and frayed – almost junkie-like – without the saccharine pill coating that usually helps us swallow the bad stuff that happens in Harry Potter Land. Who knows what awaits in Part II? (Well, besides 300 million folks.)”
-Mike Ward, Richmond.com
So goes the hype (and criticism) for “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1,” the penultimate installment of the Harry Potter saga a decade in the making (and a tad longer than that if you’ve been following the books). The world’s most famous boy wizard and his friends return in their seventh and final year to combat the evil Lord Voldemort, who has taken over the Ministry of Magic and renewed his reign of terror.
Well, what is there to say about Harry Potter that hasn’t already been said? We’ve been with him through seven books and six movies already, since that fateful day when You-Know-Who decided to carve a lightning bolt in his head at the ripe old age of about five minutes. We’ve been with him in his hellhole of a childhood home, the discovery of his ability as a wizard, his journey through the wondrous school of Hogwarts, and the various friends and enemies he’s made over the years. Even his supporting cast, from the sagely headmaster Dumbledore, to his professors McGonagall and Snape, and of course his BFF’s Hermione and Ron, have all become household names at this point.
For those of you who have been following the series, it should be said that this is easily the darkest entry in the series. For those of you who haven’t been following Harry Potter at all, it should still be said that this is the darkest entry in the series. The opening credits make this abundantly clear, with the Warner Bros. logo slowly rusting amid a cloudy backdrop and a swelling, pumping orchestra that wouldn’t sound out of place in “The Dark Knight” (or frankly, anything by Christopher Nolan). Our first scene is an emergency press conference with the Ministry of Magic, and then we join Voldemort and his merry men and women…
This really shouldn’t be news to anyone, though. Harry Potter has its roots in the more light-hearted vein of fantasy, but once he takes on a Basilisk in Book 2, Rowling and her characters never look back, with each new entry in the series darker than the last. The series has always been building up to Potter’s final confrontation with Voldemort, and Deathly Hallows is definitely no exception.
Part 1 of Deathly Hallows finds our heroes as far away from Hogwarts as possible; with Dumbledore’s dea…you know he’s dead, right?…the characters are most concerned about keeping Harry away from Voldemort. Apart from the occasional confrontation with the Death Eaters and the now-corrupt Ministry, Harry, Ron, and Hermione spend most of the movie hiding in forests, plains, canyons, people’s houses, you name it. This edition to the series is more plot-driven than the others; it’s less about Harry adjusting to the wizarding world and more of a action thriller chronicling their uphill struggle against the greatest enemy the wizarding world has ever known.
Of course, if the plot drives the movie, the plot itself is driven by our three main characters. Voldemort very seldom appears, but his influence is felt throughout the movie. Slowly but surely, Harry and the others are simply overwhelmed by a world at the mercy of their sworn enemy. More than any of the other movies, we get a sense of the coming of age story between our three BFF’s. Nowhere is this more apparent than with Harry, as we finally get a sense of the enormous burden on our hero’s shoulders. Harry wants to do something, anything, and his frantic quest to stop Voldemort drives a lot of the emotional weight of the movie.
Interspersed throughout the movie are some tightly-plotted action pieces. Deathly Hallows kicks off with an aerial chase as the Order of the Phoenix tries to get Harry away from the Death Eaters, culminating in…well, high voltage, that’s all you need to know. From there, our heroes proceed to re-enact the Bourne and Christopher Nolan class of action movies, with one notable confrontation in a café as Harry’s BFF’s and a pair of Death Eaters proceed to literally shoot the place up. However, one scene goes a bit too far in the direction of the Bourne trilogy; specifically, their race against Fenrir Grayback sees a lot of that “shaky cam” that’s in a lot of movies lately. It’s a trick directors like to use to make a scene more “tense”; unfortunately, it was one of the few scenes where the movie really lost my attention.
Speaking strictly as (*disclaimer!) someone who has never read the books, I can say that they found a good cutoff point between Parts 1 and 2. It could have ended on a less than perfect note. Instead, it ended with Fenrir, the Malfoys, an axe-crazy Bellatrix, and of course, Dobby. They say it’s always darkest before the dawn, and short of the upcoming Hogwarts battle (c’mon, people, it’s a four-year-old…uh, three-year-old book), it doesn’t get much darker than that.
So overall, is “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I” a good movie? Yes. In fact, let’s just go ahead and make the jump to “great movie.” If nothing else, it has left me anxious for Part II. (Although it probably wouldn’t have killed them to come up with a decent shorthand title…)
Note: The Brewsky is an enthusiastic contributor and movie reviewer, and a horcrux of He Who Must Not Be Named. He also kills Ron in the second to last chapter. Seriously, how do you not know that? He kills Ron, and then Hermione kills him. How? You mean you don’t know how? C’mon, she used that one spell, with the…y’know, the thing with her finger. C’mon, this is first-year stuff…
Well, what is there to say about Harry Potter that hasn’t already been said? We’ve been with him through seven books and six movies already, since that fateful day when You-Know-Who decided to carve a lightning bolt in his head at the ripe old age of about five minutes. We’ve been with him in his hellhole of a childhood home, the discovery of his ability as a wizard, his journey through the wondrous school of Hogwarts, and the various friends and enemies he’s made over the years. Even his supporting cast, from the sagely headmaster Dumbledore, to his professors McGonagall and Snape, and of course his BFF’s Hermione and Ron, have all become household names at this point.
For those of you who have been following the series, it should be said that this is easily the darkest entry in the series. For those of you who haven’t been following Harry Potter at all, it should still be said that this is the darkest entry in the series. The opening credits make this abundantly clear, with the Warner Bros. logo slowly rusting amid a cloudy backdrop and a swelling, pumping orchestra that wouldn’t sound out of place in “The Dark Knight” (or frankly, anything by Christopher Nolan). Our first scene is an emergency press conference with the Ministry of Magic, and then we join Voldemort and his merry men and women…
This really shouldn’t be news to anyone, though. Harry Potter has its roots in the more light-hearted vein of fantasy, but once he takes on a Basilisk in Book 2, Rowling and her characters never look back, with each new entry in the series darker than the last. The series has always been building up to Potter’s final confrontation with Voldemort, and Deathly Hallows is definitely no exception.
Part 1 of Deathly Hallows finds our heroes as far away from Hogwarts as possible; with Dumbledore’s dea…you know he’s dead, right?…the characters are most concerned about keeping Harry away from Voldemort. Apart from the occasional confrontation with the Death Eaters and the now-corrupt Ministry, Harry, Ron, and Hermione spend most of the movie hiding in forests, plains, canyons, people’s houses, you name it. This edition to the series is more plot-driven than the others; it’s less about Harry adjusting to the wizarding world and more of a action thriller chronicling their uphill struggle against the greatest enemy the wizarding world has ever known.
Of course, if the plot drives the movie, the plot itself is driven by our three main characters. Voldemort very seldom appears, but his influence is felt throughout the movie. Slowly but surely, Harry and the others are simply overwhelmed by a world at the mercy of their sworn enemy. More than any of the other movies, we get a sense of the coming of age story between our three BFF’s. Nowhere is this more apparent than with Harry, as we finally get a sense of the enormous burden on our hero’s shoulders. Harry wants to do something, anything, and his frantic quest to stop Voldemort drives a lot of the emotional weight of the movie.
Interspersed throughout the movie are some tightly-plotted action pieces. Deathly Hallows kicks off with an aerial chase as the Order of the Phoenix tries to get Harry away from the Death Eaters, culminating in…well, high voltage, that’s all you need to know. From there, our heroes proceed to re-enact the Bourne and Christopher Nolan class of action movies, with one notable confrontation in a café as Harry’s BFF’s and a pair of Death Eaters proceed to literally shoot the place up. However, one scene goes a bit too far in the direction of the Bourne trilogy; specifically, their race against Fenrir Grayback sees a lot of that “shaky cam” that’s in a lot of movies lately. It’s a trick directors like to use to make a scene more “tense”; unfortunately, it was one of the few scenes where the movie really lost my attention.
Speaking strictly as (*disclaimer!) someone who has never read the books, I can say that they found a good cutoff point between Parts 1 and 2. It could have ended on a less than perfect note. Instead, it ended with Fenrir, the Malfoys, an axe-crazy Bellatrix, and of course, Dobby. They say it’s always darkest before the dawn, and short of the upcoming Hogwarts battle (c’mon, people, it’s a four-year-old…uh, three-year-old book), it doesn’t get much darker than that.
So overall, is “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I” a good movie? Yes. In fact, let’s just go ahead and make the jump to “great movie.” If nothing else, it has left me anxious for Part II. (Although it probably wouldn’t have killed them to come up with a decent shorthand title…)
Note: The Brewsky is an enthusiastic contributor and movie reviewer, and a horcrux of He Who Must Not Be Named. He also kills Ron in the second to last chapter. Seriously, how do you not know that? He kills Ron, and then Hermione kills him. How? You mean you don’t know how? C’mon, she used that one spell, with the…y’know, the thing with her finger. C’mon, this is first-year stuff…
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