Movie review in the Friday, Nov. 19 Oregonian....
The somber (and pretty terrific) "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1" tells roughly half the story of the final book in J.K. Rowling's boy-wizard series -- but it also plays like two different movies stitched together.
For a while, it feels a bit like a WWII thriller set in occupied France, if France was a giant Renaissance faire. After the brutal assassinations of "Half-Blood Prince," Lord Voldemort's allies have seized the Ministry of Magic in a coup d'etat. Voldemort's Gestapo-style shock troops now roam the halls of wizard government, nabbing low-level bureaucrats and subjecting them to kangaroo courts and ethnic cleansing. (Amusingly, Rowling has constructed a world in which someone can be burned for not being a witch.)
And Harry Potter is now a fugitive, shuttled to safe houses by a dedicated resistance.
The first half of "Deathly Hallows: Part 1" is a major break from the school-year structure of the earlier films, but it still feels more or less like the "Harry Potter" fans have come to expect -- albeit with a few more character deaths than usual and a heartbreaking moment in which Hermione (Emma Watson) erases her parents' memories of her for their own safety. The pace is still brisk and the set pieces are still outlandish, and returning director David Yates ("Order of the Phoenix," "Half-Blood Prince") still has a surprisingly light touch during moments of low-key banter between Harry, Hermione and Ron (Rupert Grint).
I've heard people give Yates flak for making the "Potter" series feel like a megabudget TV miniseries, but personally I love that he's not particularly showoffy -- he throws away special effects that would have been the entire point of a scene earlier in the series. And I really love the way he's let his young stars breathe in their roles; he's more interested in faces than pixels. Yates also pulls off the nearly impossible task of lending gravitas to scenes in which people are dressed in bright velvety robes and funny hats shooting at each other with wands. He may be the Irvin Kershner of this franchise in that regard.
Three sequences in this first half are thrillingly staged: a magic motorcade of Harry impersonators trying to get our hero to his next safe house; a diner wand-shootout that plays like an attempted mob hit; and Harry, Ron and Hermione getting in way over their heads as they sneak into the Ministry of Magic looking for clues.
And then, following a bright flash of light, we're in the woods -- and the "Potter" series takes a fascinating, slow detour.
I haven't read the books, but I gather that the long interlude in "Deathly Hallows" in which Harry, Ron and Hermione sit in a tent and teleport about the countryside and stare meaningfully into the distance and figure out what to do next while bickering amongst themselves was going to be the hardest part of Rowling's books to adapt, despite featuring the fewest special-effects challenges. Fans have described it as patience-testing on the page: Rowling slams the story into low gear and starts piling on more backstory and characters and "Fellowship of the Ring"-style quest objects than narrative tightness might favor. By film's end, our heroes are looking for objects containing Voldemort's essence, a sword and a trio of objects Death gave to three brothers a long time ago -- plus maybe some paperwork. Frodo would have choked on that sort of multitasking.
This slightly messy lull makes "Deathly Hallows: Part 1" even more of a talky, problematic, calm-before-the-storm film than "Order of the Phoenix." But Yates and screenwriter Steve Kloves successfully tackle the challenge the same way Yates tackled it in "Phoenix" -- by seizing the opportunity to deepen character relationships. Essentially, the filmmakers gamble on (and reward) the audience's built-up love for these characters, and win.
The entire cast does the subtlest work we’ve seen in a “Potter” film, right down to the supporting and single-scene players. For one small example, Tom Felton has replaced Draco's childish snarling with overwhelmed, wide-eyed fear.
The film continues the tone set by "Half-Blood Prince" that we're leaving childish things behind, that human and magical concerns are starting to mingle in a grown-up way. (In the case of one scene I'll call "The Temptation of Ron," it mingles in a surprisingly grown-up way; the movie earns its PG-13.) When "Part 2" hits theaters eight months from now, I suspect I'll appreciate the buildup to a (literally) explosive finale. It's going to be a long wait.
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(146 min., rated PG-13 for some sequences of intense action violence, frightening images and brief sensuality) Grade: B-plus
'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1' (The Oregonian, Friday, Nov. 19, 2010)
It's interesting how the Harry Potter series went from colorful fantasy to a grim dark fantasy, but this is all part of growing up. While this movie does offer the grim dark fantasy quite well
Posted by: Watch Movies | December 14, 2010 at 06:00 AM