Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1: the verdict

Mixture of excitement and nervousness about this one after the Dumbledore/astronomy tower debacle of the Half Blood Prince.

Much relief in that there isn't any obvious messing with the story this time although I've purposefully avoided the book so it's not too fresh in my mind. But it bodes well for part 2.

Deathly Hallows 1 certainly seems the most polished of the films so far. The production is much more grown up, reflecting the subject matter and maturing characters, flexing its film-craft muscles using hand held cameras for some of the action sequences, for example. 

And the CGI too seems the most polished of the films. Technology has developed or perhaps the film makers just had more time with this one. Dobby and Kreacher in particular are about as 'real' as they could be. Lets face it, Harry weeping over a bad CGI Dobby would be a hard scene to give emotional gravitas to otherwise.

Indeed Daniel Radcliffe's ability as an actor continues to grow, no doubt helped by his stints on stage and screen outside the franchise. There is great rapore between Harry and Emma Watson's Hermione but Rupert Grint's  Ron seems a bit stodgy, almost as if he has outgrown the character.

I haven't read any reviews but I confidently predict that a good handful of them will comment on Hallows being darker than the others and of course it is only right as the characters reach adulthood the film matures. Indeed there is one particularly bloody scene where Hermoine treats what is a very convincingly 'splinched' Ron. Maybe it's because of this that Ron's humour seems sometimes a little out of place and awkward at times.

The film has not manage to overcome the dull sequence in the book when the trio seem to spend endless hours in different campsites, not making much progress with their search for horcruxes and I did wonder how engaged the younger members of the audience were.

And maybe it's because I know what happens but crucial scenes such as the capture by the snatchers lacked tension. It might also be because you know this film isn't going to conclude and as a consequence you don't invest as much in it.

I'm not saying they should have tried to shoe-horn JK Rowling's final tome into one film, that would have resulted in a dreadful hacking of some juicy and important parts of the story but it doesn't get around the fact that there was a lack of pace and drama at times.

That isn't to say there aren't some thrills and spill. Nadini, Voldemort's snake is worked particularly well and had me jumping in my seat on at least one occasion (that bit at least will work well in 3D).

Overall it was excitingly underwhelming. It's heightened my anticipation for the final film, not least because I feel more confident they'll have done a good job with the story and I will go and see part 1 again but I'm I think the spontaneous post screening grin will come at the end of Part 2.

PS Forgot to add in my reviews monitor when I originally wrote the post:

Rotten Tomatoes gives Deathly Hallows Part one a thumbs up with an aggregated review score of 78%

Metacritic, based on 42 critics reviews was only slightly less favourable rating it 68 out 100 but the average user rating on the site was 7.8/10 so the public liking it more than the critics in the US then.

Comments

[Julebule81]

I really loved it, but then again I like all the HP movies because I don't compare them with the books, they're completely separate entities for me. This one deserves extra cheers because they managed to keep things interesting even though all the usual fascinating HP stuff like the whole Hogwarts atmosphere, etc. was missing.

[Rev Stan]

No I didnt but I will certainly look out for it when I see it again. What did you think of it?

[Julebule81]

Did you notice the huge mistake they made in the scene where Hermione treats Ron's splinching injuries? She says "Runcorn splinched", even though Ron was Cattermole and Harry was Runcorn. That really bothered me.