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Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) is on a quest for hidden pieces of Voldemort’s soul in “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1.” |
Maybe Harry Potter could cast a magic spell over us before we see his new movie.
He could point his magic wand and utter an incantation like “NoDozeium Offem.” Or “RedBullium Energizus.”
That might help get us through “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1,” a mystical slugfest of gloom, doom, death and dysfunction, a wearying tale of color-bled, never-ending scenes of isolation and despair, mistrust and miscalculation.
Hard-core Harry fans will not be deterred by the meandering plot and bleak parade of expository sequences piling into each other.
But how else could “Deathly Hallows: Part 1” be anything beyond what it is: a beginningless, endless warmup act that lays the foundation for the climactic Battle of Hogwarts in Part 2, scheduled for release July 15?
Director David Yates has already supplied us with two well-crafted “Harry Potter” films: “The Half-Blood Prince” and ”The Order of the Phoenix.” Screenwriter Steve Kloves has performed a masterful job of translating and condensing J.K. Rowling’s epic novels to the silver screen.
Only after Part 2 comes out will anyone be able to gauge if breaking Rowling’s seventh and supposedly final Harry Potter novel into two movies was the best decision.
Meanwhile, Yates and his crew should be commended for sticking to Rowling’s literary vision and not dumbing down the material for “Harry Potter” neophytes, who won’t have a clue what’s going on in some of the character-driven plot developments. (Read more…)