Sure, I dig Shakespeare actors and I saw the first Harry Potter without havin’ read the book when it first came to DVD. That qualifies me to review Potter… six and a half? Or is one half of seven but not three point five?
That movie was about three kids and one of em’ has a scar and is supposed to die or is already dead or had sorcerer or philosopher parents. He might have been reincarnated. That makes him important so his teachers give him special treatment. Everyone flies on brooms and…
Then I skimmed through the second and third movies where some of the teachers are bad guys, and werewolves try to eat them but they’re saved by a deer made of light, and there’s a man/root thing that screams a lot and I love that. I love it when man/roots scream a lot.
After skipping the rest of the films, and watching a live performance by the Emerson College quiddich team *cough*, I descended into a chair and opened my serious professional’s notebook for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part one of more than one.
The girl I sat next to.. had the book with her. She read it when she could have been entertained by my winning personality. Before the film started I did manage to learn that she’d already read this thing fourteen times. It’s thicker than a bible and it’s only one in a series.
Psycho.
The theater lights dim and she starts holding her friend and crying. This lasts two and a half hours.
My interest in getting her number has vanished.
So we begin. The core three characters erase themselves from family photos and the minds of parents. I guess they still live at home after graduating from the University of Blowing Shit Up with Magic.
Bill Nighy of the Underworld series is always fun to watch. His face fills the screen shouting of dark times and a powerful ministry. Great opening. I feel like I’m in for something. Harry Potter is epic .
Then the Lord of All Evil sits at the head of a table. I know he is evil because everyone is wearing black and because he looks like a burn victim. His chief concern is killing Harry Potter. He can’t do this with his wand because his wand is the same as Potter’s wand and.. the wands can only hurt each other’s owners.. not kill each other’s.. anyway he borrows someone else’s wand.
Cut to a motel, and people who love Harry drink potions to look like Harry because that opens for a transvestite joke. How British. They all fly into clouds where loud noises are heard and we can sort of make out maybe a cloud battle? Harry and the bearded guy from the first movie engage in a Return of the Jedi speederbike chase. Haha..
For a brief moment we’re treated to cool photography, like a house in the middle of a field that looks like something between Days of Heaven and Howl’s Moving Castle. A couple more of these shots will pop up later in the film and, yeah I really appreciate that because whenever someone talks, I have No-Eyed-Deer what what’s going on.
Harry zips up a girl’s dress and the crowd HATES IT. People gasp, they exclaim, and otherwise reject the film for a few moments. “Oh my God! OH MY GAWD!!! Why did they change that??? Whyyyyyy. I can’t believe this is happening.”
Then there’s a wedding. I don’t know who’s getting married.
People speak of family trees and secret relationships. They use words that definitely are not English and even if they were, the actors are mumbling them. This is what it is like the entire film.
A few attempts are made at humor, like how much chick-wizard can hold in her purse. I’m introduced to short ugly things named Creature and Doobie that look like they were animated before Lord of the Rings was written.
Magneto stops a train.
Characters walk in pouring rain without umbrellas.
The trio of Harry, chick-wizard, and redheaded dude take on the appearance of adults and flush themselves down toilets to get to an evil bureaucratic institution. They assault an old lady and steal her locket. This was their overall mission. This was their purpose. I knew this after it happened.
The wizards who rarely practice wizardry teleport all over the place for a looong, long time. I wonder why they flew through battle clouds if they know how to teleport, or why they need an Elf with teleport powers later in the movie.
The next half hour is scenery. Nothing happens. The red headed kid leaves and then he comes back. They can’t destroy the locket because it’s an indestructible locket that might as well be called The One Locket because it needs to be destroyed and it corrupts anyone who wears it.
Of course they take turns wearing it, and why wouldn’t they?
An awkward dance scene goes from trying too hard to be lighthearted right back to heavy. Might have been better just heavy.
They visit some gravestones, they fight a snake, they run through the forest, then they get Excalibur from the lake and they use it to destroy the locket, but not before it opens up and displays a smoke-hologram of Harry and the chick-wizard doin’ it.
After talk of trackers and snatchers the film diverts to an animated shadow-puppet exercise in exposition. It appears to be explaining the entire Harry Potter universe. Sounds like a while lotta poppycock.
The post-pubescent actors are captured but nobody can confirm if it’s really them because Harry has been made to look ugly with a spell.. and it nobody recognizes the other two, including a kid they graduated with. Yeah. Considering all of the anti-Potter periwinkle propaganda being handed out on the street this is about as stupefying as anything. He’s had the same two friends since 2001 and they are people of non-interest.
Helena Bonham Carter is, for the first time, not a good actress but the scene is creepy and someone dies. This someone is not Alien actor John Hurt, who doesn’t have a line. He’s just there. He’s just standing there. Why is he standing there?
Finally, the movie half ends. Lives are changed in the audience. To me it seems like too many pages were taken from other fantasy books. A whole lot doesn’t make sense unless it is solved by magic, convenient when you write yourself into a corner.
The film was well presented some of the time, was Twilight-style fan service the rest of the time, and ultimately made no attempt to recap the series, which I can appreciate. People like me shouldn’t be watching this, anyway. We should read those books or resist the curiosity.
Overall Score: 6.60 – Okay. (6s are just okay. These movies usually have many flaws, didn’t try to do anything special, or were poorly executed. Some will still love 6s, but most prefer to just rent them. Watch more trailers and read more reviews before you decide.)
