November 26, 2010
Dramatic Tent Time
I guess I watched Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, huh? Yeah, I kind of did. It’s the perfect sort of film for people looking for something like this!
It was also adequate.
That’s sort of the only feeling I got from the film. I had had pretty high hopes about the movie after the Half-Blood Prince film. It was really fantastic because the people who put the movies together took liberties and had the freedom to create an entertaining film, instead of being locked firmly to what the book did. Therefore, I was really looking forward to what they did with the seventh book, since I love to hate on it so much. Could they turn Tent Angst Time into an entertaining film? COULD THEY DO IT?
Eh, sort of.
They, rightfully, barely spend any time in the tent. Little scenes are expanded in order to fill the time, and are normally expanded with exciting fight scenes, which certainly make Harry Potter and Friends seem a lot more badass. For example, what I remember as being about a two second encounter in the diner turns into a dramatic firefight ending with the entire diner destroyed. It’s entertaining to watch.
Especially of interest is Dobby who, somehow, they manage to make seem kind of badass and cool. He keeps showing up, kicking ass, and spouting dramatic one-liners. When he, spoilarz, kicks the bucket, it did feel like an emotional scene. I was kind of affected. But then I remembered it was Dobby. Still, impressive to even get that far. I’m sure fans who care about the character more than I would have been really touched. Shauna, for example, seemed to be strongly affected. So that’s good on them.
Overall, though, they really stuck much more firmly to the plot of the book in this movie, which disappointed me. Harry and friends really are just kind of doing things at random and getting super lucky all throughout the plot of the book, and this isn’t explained more here. Decisions aren’t given much more weight. Sure, we get to see a ghostly Harry and Hermoine having hot naked makings-out, but is that something someone actually wanted to see? It was good to show that these characters are basically adults now, but still, it almost came off as silly, since the ghost people looked like they were made of plastic. After that sixth movie, I thought for sure they could jump in there and make the whole thing make a little more sense. It didn’t happen.
The movie is fine. If you like the books, you’ll love it. If you have a weird sort of love/hate relationship with Harry Potter, you’ll enjoy seeing it, but probably won’t be all impressed. By all means, give it a view. In the end, though, it’s still a movie that’s half of Harry Potter book 7, so… you know what you’re getting into.