Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I came out last week.
I seemed to have missed the hype and hysteria that comes with the movies because I don’t own a TV and therefore missed the media frenzy.
But I did find myself in one of those super luxurious movie seats in Cross Iron Mills Saturday to watch the second to last installment of the Harry Potter series.
It has been three years and a half since the book was released and since then, there hasn’t been much talk about Harry Potter. I enjoyed the book and waited with baited breath for its release. I almost threw the 6th book out the window when I was finished it (What? you mean he died? and I have to wait a YEAR for the rest of it?).
Watching the movie was a bit anti-climatic. Not that I didn’t enjoy the books but the story has been concluded and I’m over it. The movie is like an echo of a memory.
Characters are introduced and I don’t remember who they are, or why they were significant to the story. As the story progressed, I started remembering what would come next, sometimes as they were happening. Nevertheless the movie is a dark and accurate portrayal of the books and doesn’t deviate from the story or leave large gaps. But as it is with most of the movies, it helps to have read the books.
The biggest disappointment for me was what they left out of the movie. I think one of the major successes of the book is the parallels that are drawn to the second world war and how the major cause of terror towards Voldemort is how he causes distrust within everyone. People are truly hopeless on their own and I think that fear of betrayal is a important theme in the book and I didn’t feel it within the movie. The movie illustrates the evil lord, the person who is killing people, but it didn’t show how people were turning on each other.
Our famous actors have grown into their own, though their acting skills are not outstanding. It’s actually Oliver Phelps (George Weasley) who displays his outstanding comedic abilities in a very brief moment at the beginning of the film.
The Harry Potter movies are for the fans. This film with its complicated plot and intricate weaving of characters stands pretty strong on it’s own. I didn’t walk out of the theatre wanting to throw it out the window.