Best Of

Deathly Hallows Part 1

I still find this film neither underwhelming or overwhelming. They just tried way too hard to stick to the book. I feel like they just weren't very ambitious or creative at all when adapting the book. What I mean by that is, in their faithfulness to the book, the chaos and danger the Wizarding World now represented was very underwhelming. They really could have used the visual advantage a movie has to effectively show how Voldemort had total power and how everyone was ultimately after Harry. Instead of keeping a constant sense of fear for the trio, the film merely presents it only when it's relative to the scene at hand. The intense importance of the trio's mission to the world at large is easily forgotten given that the film lets you forget just how much the Wizarding World has gone to hell under Voldemort. It's easy to see how the non book readers got frustrated watching Harry, Ron, and Hermione seemingly just hanging around in a tent. It's like the movie paused the action in order to develop the characters. This is in a sense true for both the book and the movie, but the movie didn't convey effectively that outside their little bubble in the tent there were people searching up and down the country for them to the point where even visiting a grocery store was a risk.

I'm not saying there needed to be constant scenes of Death Eaters destroying stuff. Just, throughout the film, I would've liked some visual reminders: Hermione seeing wanted posters for both her and Harry at Godrics Hollow, Ron exclaiming how he would have know if they were dead because the Ministry was looking for Harry everywhere, a Death Eater attack (or some kind of close call) in the middle of the camping scenes), Death Eaters outside Grimmauld Place. Maybe some sort of announcement from the radio calling for anyone with information on Harry Potter's whereabouts to come forward (with the promise of a reward). Ooo, just thought of this, how about a radio announcement where they say something like "Harry Potter has been sighted in blah blah blah" and that's where the trio actually is, and they realize someone must have seen them and quickly pack and leave.

Without this the film kind of feels like it's plodding along from set piece to set piece with some camping in the middle in order to develop the characters. However, the film shines in many of the individual set pieces it put out, including the camping where some of the most character charged drama in the series is seen. The opening and the Dark Lord Ascending are both sad and chilling respectively. Sky Battle is exciting, the scene in London has a good sense of urgency, the camping scenes are very effective when it comes to the trio, Ron destroying the locket is great, the Tale of the Three Brothers is fantastic and beautiful, and the little bit we got of Hermione's torture was very scary. Finally it ends with an awesome cliffhanger. Overally, it's probably in the middle tier of the series.