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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1

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All I can say is I can't wait for Part 2. From the moment the lights went down and the screen lit up, I was hooked. Before the title was brought on screen, the viewer was hooked and the mood of the entire movie was set with the little to no dialogue from the 3 main characters - Ron, Harry and Hermione. The 3 of them looked out of their houses into the world, preparing for what they were all about to embark on, trying to digest what they signed up for. In my opinion, it was one of the best beginnings for a movie, ever.  What the beginning also did was tell all of the viewers this isn't like any Harry Potter movie you have seen - it is darker, more evil and more gruesome than all of the other six movies. And frankly, it has to be. Harry is fighting to stay alive and he is looking death in the face. Not to mention he is still a 17 year old teenager who is trying to fight the feelings he has and the worry he has for the Weasley family (his family), especially Ginny.

The movie was shocking in more ways than one. As was mentioned earlier, since Harry has to face death every time he moves, there is almost no room for any type of happiness. Even when Harry tries to lighten the mood by dancing with Hermione, it is short lived because they can't forget who is searching for them. Another way the movie was shocking was all the death's and injury's - they were much more prominent than in any other movie.  The scenes weren't subdued like the other movies where the audience couldn't see what they characters were looking at. This time all of the blood and guts and dead bodies were out in the open for everyone to see.

The Deathly Hallows Part 1 is not for children. At all. I am sure there have been some parents who walk into this movie thinking it is going to be just like the rest of them and then get blown away by how much it isn't. Besides the growing up of the 3 characters that make this movie darker, the familiar locations or lack there of makes it dark too. The only time that we see anything related to Hogwarts is a 5 second clip of Death Eaters boarding the Hogwarts Express on the way to school looking for the famous trio. We do get to see the Burrow but even with the wedding of Bill and Fleur the atmosphere is dreary. Only for a half second do we see people smiling and that was Bill & Fleur on their wedding day.

What all of the above examples are trying to bring to light is this movie is gruesome, in your face and completely unpredictable even if you have read the book. You don't know what the director is going to do with the scenes and how much they are going to reveal. That is what makes going to see these movies fun. The reader gets the idea in their head of what certain scenes look like and the excitement comes when they see it on screen and compare it to their own imagination. That is what I did and I was happy with how the director put those scenes on screen.

This movie was by far the best of them all so far (we still have the second half of Deathly Hallows). David Yates, the director, has directed the last 2 Harry Potters - Order of the Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince - which makes him the perfect director to finish Harry Potter. He made 2 of the darkest novels into movies, it make sense he would direct the darkest of them all.

There wasn't much action in this movie so to some people it was a very slow moving plot but I disagree. Yates didn't dwell on one scene for too long - the flow of the movie was smooth. Yes, there was not a lot of action but there is so much that has to be explained at some point in the last 3 movies there was bound to be a break in the action. I thought it was needed desperately to set up the final events of the story. And yes, there is still a lot of explaining to do but I am sure Yates and the writers already figured out the way to balance the two.

As I said before, this is the best Harry Potter film to date. The started the ball rolling on the closure of the story and the best part is yet to come. July can't come soon enough. A+

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