![]() ![]() Not long after, he's presenting the orphaned messiah Harry Potter and his two wizardly chums, the upper-middle-class Hermione Granger (Emma Watson) and the lower-middle-class Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint), with mysterious inheritances from Dumbledore, their mentor and former headmaster at Hogwarts School for Wizardry. Penumbrously lit by Portuguese-born French cinematographer Eduardo Serra, the latest and penultimate film in the Harry Potter cycle (in fact the first half of JK Rowling's final book) begins with an ominous, Sergio Leone-style close-up of Bill Nighy telling us: "These are dark times." He sounds like any member of the coalition cabinet at the dispatch box, but he is, in fact, Rufus Scrimgeour, minister of magic. But more recently in popular culture, and especially in the movies, it's come to mean deep, serious, mature, dangerous and altogether more truthful, more worthy of intelligent consideration than anything categorised as "light" and thus frivolous and deceptive. ![]() It has some of the most beautiful and artistic animation I have ever seen in a movie.The adjective "dark" has always suggested something sinister, often associated with the Prince of Darkness. Keep on the lookout for the scene about the deathly hallows story. If not, let the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 redeem your faith in the series. If you've enjoyed the HP movies so far, this should be a satisfying experience at least. The Deathly Hallows: Part 1 is a nice improvement and a fine addition to the Harry Potter series and should serve as a solid emotional base for Part 2 to take off with next year. Performances were fine, effects were impressive, and best of all, nothing dastardly was done to J.K. See what I'm getting at? Aside from that, I can't complain much. So I liked this movie because the pace was slow, but I also didn't like this movie because the pace was slow. You'll be left in your seats feeling like this is going nowhere- but that's the point: Harry, Ron, and Hermoine are getting nowhere. Storyline lags intensely towards the middle of the film and is dragged out until the conclusion (which ends abruptly). The Deathly Hallows continually feeds us a feeling of desolation as Harry, Ron and Hermoine fail to discover a way to destroy the horcruxes they seem to be making no progress towards defeating the Dark Lord, but as an effect the movie seems to be making no progress towards an ending. But where the slow pacing makes this film stand out in the series, it also may be its downfall. Since Rowling's seventh book is separated into two movies, Part 1 boasts a much slower pace than earlier HP films and is not so focused on cramming as many subplots and side-stories from the book as possible into the movie's runtime, which tends to clutter up the storyline and make the whole thing feel rushed. With dark undertones running through the cinematography, Part 1 of the Harry Potter finale is the film that deals more with the emotional stagnation of the characters and spends less time with action scenes and major plot points. The Deathly Hallows very successfully portrays the despair-filled journey of the wizarding trio. ![]() While keeping a low cover, Harry, Ron, and Hermoine decide to track down and destroy Voldemort's soul contained in hidden "horcruxes" but have difficulties deciding what to do and where to start. After the death of Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore, the magical world falls into disarray as Voldemort gains power over the Ministry of Magic and hunts tirelessly after his mortal enemy and our continuing protagonist, Harry Potter. I haven't been a huge fan of any of the HP movies to date, but I was pleased with the Deathly Hallows because it took a big step up in maturity from the "children's fantasy" genre and focused on themes very central to the seventh book: hopelessness and desperation. ![]() In my mind, the Deathly Hallows Part 1 captured the feeling of exactly what the Harry Potter movies should have been all along: gritty, emotional, and cinematic. ![]()
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