Thursday 18 November 2010

Harry potter and the deathly hollows part I movie review

Right, just came back from the cinema. So this is still my first impression of the movie.

Well, it is quite good. Actually it's very good. And that is my over all judgement, so now that is out of the way lets go more into detail.

When I first heard the movie was going to be made in two parts, I was one of the first people to be sour and grumpy about it, because in my head it was because the studio just wanted a reason to earn more money.

Now that I have seen the movie, I simply could not have imagined it done any other way. How would you cramp all that down on half the time? It's just not possible.

However, this movie do actually kind of suffer from only being a "first part third act movie" … I never said I should have to call anything that.. I usually would be able to say. "First" "Second" or "third" act.. I know the rules for them pretty well… If you really want to now the first act stopped in the end of book/film four, the second act was book/film five and six.. or as I said.. six is kind of a weird in between time to reflect thingy... and yeah we just stopped abruptly in the middle of the third act.

This movie is building up and building up without pay off.. which is why it's such a good thing that it's not meant to stand alone in the first place. It also makes it so I can't review it probably without having seen the second half and the pay off, build up only ever works when you see how it affect the pay off, and we havn't seen the pay off yet. I can't review the movie right.. sorry.

Still, I am pretty happy that it's a two-parter, I still can't imagine it be done any differently. with two hours and thirty minutes it is a long movie, but it uses it's time well and to much is happening for it to being able to stand still to much, though it do like to dwell on the characters for a chance, it's not many directors who would be able to dvell like this, but David Yate exceeds in this particular field and the emotions are dreading and genuine. It fells like we are sort of witnessing the eye of a storm here. You know, the storm is raging outside, and inside in the eye is where our main character is, yet we can very much sense the storm raging just one centimetre to the right and two inches to the left. There is a sort of dull suspension atmosphere, and our main characters only need to put as much a little toe outside of the eye in the storm, and shit happens. Every single time.

I have never been afraid of snakes in films before, but jesus! Now I am oO; those snakes scared the hell out of me. her majesty Voldemorts pet snake (literately) Nagini is a freaking scary main villain all by her snaky self.

And dude if you didn't noticed before, people god damn dies in Harry potter seven.. oddly enough, my emotional state weren't nearly as big as I thought it would be, maybe it's just me who have grown into a cold bastard, but I didn't cry as much as once. Despite on screen deaths, no the mention the off screen. Maybe it's also because I have cried over these characters ones before three years ago, and I am now empty. I don't know.

Once again David Yates understands to use his medium in interpretation the books rather than his own mind or copying the books page for page. I love the fact that the Death eater meeting in the beginning takes place at Hogwarts instead of the Malfoy mansion. In that way we do at least see the school a tiny bit, a whole Harry potter movie without Hogwarts is just weird. it also gracefully and visually show that Hogwarts have now fallen, Jesus that the death eaters chooses to have their main meetings in there is just sheer gloating! also our only chance to see Snape, though David Yates did give a well damn good try of trying to sneak his presence into the movie by having him both mentioned in the radio and we see a news paper front titel saying he is the new head master.. I am not sure it worked because so much happens and the ordinary viewer would probably not even notice, but hey. Yates tried.

And I don't care for all does people who complain the finale battle was set at hogwarts, honestly guys, where else would it have been?

Though as Snape who fill the shoes of this franchises personal villain (most books and films have two villains, the powerful and the personal, try and look other franchises over and see if you can spot them.. and yeas I know Snape isn't a villain, but he fill the shoes anyhow) As I said, Snape have next to zero screen time. but for the first time ever Voldemort have screen time, he actually almost never had any prior.. I mean incarnations of him had but not the current man himself. And it's actually kind of interesting to see him walk around and talk at last, I don't believe we have seen it in that way before.

Other small things have been shifted around and interpreted, but it works. and it's a good movie in it's own right plus faithful to the book.

Many was mad that the polyjuice potion didn't change voices in the second movie, but here it is actually pretty vital. It would have been to weird seeing these two strangers with strangers voices instead of the golden trio in the ministry of magic. it just wouldn't have worked.

Is it only me who thinks it's utterly amazing that they were able to get that many celebrity actors into the movie even though they only appeared for like ten seconds?

I am talking of cause of actors who already played well known characters prior. I just came to my mind how many there are of them, and they are taking the places you normally give to nameless minions. It's not because their characters have turned bad or anything, it was the same way in the book, they had just fulfilled their plot purpose and was there as recognisable faces and villains we knew why we hated and why we wanted them to go down.. but it still amazes me seeing this celebs acting as the background characters you usually hire stunt doubles to do, they are just standing there.. threatening put still, some of these people costs a lot of money for any movie. Well, just nice to seem them. It is the movie after all where everyone and everything is coming together and appear together, on the light or dark side.. that differs. but they are there, also in the book.

The entire movie have a sort of slow dull tone, on the same time as you can fell the raging storm outside, it makes the experience kind of hypnotising and dreading, and it makes me grave the next movie real badly, I grave for my pay off and the finale battle in all it's glory.

And that is good! That is good of the movie, the ending picture of Voldemort screaming in triumph will probably ensure that every single movie goer watching the movie is going to come back next summer.

And god bless the British. You can say what you want about them, but they sure are funny and can do funny twerks in even the grimmest scenes. Even the most bad ass british bloody thriller will have a sarcastic humourus glint in the eye. And it was quite often that the entire cinema hall laughed doing this movie. Despite the dreading situation.

If you're not a Harry Potter fan... I am clueless to whether you should go watch it.. I guess it's an uniqe film and the situation is in any case unique. it's an above standard fantasy movie and original though a little corny now and then.. I dunno.

If you are a Harry potter fan. go watch it. differently!

It is literately; Our last chance, to experience something new in this franchise which both I and a lot of other people hold very dear. And we are ending this one a high note, which is great for me indeed.

2 comments:

  1. Not much of a Potter fan really, but at this point I've invested so much time in watching all the other movies, it seems pointless to back out now. :)

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  2. read the books and you will be a fan :P

    Especially in this movie it should be painly breathtakingly obvious there is so much going on the movie simply do not have time dealing with.

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