Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1: BD Review
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Page 1 of 3 Warner / 146 Minutes / 2010 / Rated PG-13 / Street Date: April 15, 2011
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, for those of you who haven’t read the books, centers around the trio of Harry, Hermione and Ron setting off to hunt down and destroy the protective horcruxes that the evil Voldemort has hidden pieces of his soul within in order to protect himself from death. Again, if you haven’t read the books that last sentence will seem a bit left-field –hell, my spellcheck underlined a large chunk of it. In fact, I don’t even know why you’re reading this if you haven’t picked up one or two of the J.K. Rowling-penned books. While not of the highest literary quality they are entertainingly fun and the movies, for the most part, have been equally so. Throughout the arc of the story, from the first Chris Columbus-directed Sorcerer’s Stone to the David Yates-helmed Half-Blood Prince, we have watched the central cast of characters age from inexperienced children to adult actors. In the first movies the children in the cast were merely avatars barely capable of reading lines with even the smallest conveyance of emotion. This was made all the more obvious when paired with a revolving adult cast that resembled a who’s who of talented British actors, including the late Sir Richard Harris, Kenneth Branagh, Brendan Gleeson, Dame Maggie Smith, Gary Oldman and Alan Rickman. Throughout the middle movies of the seven (now eight) part series the actors playing the central characters of Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Hermione (Emma Watson) and Ron (Rupert Grint) began to take baby steps towards doing more than simply parroting J.K. Rowling’s written word.
By The Goblet of Fire and The Order of the Phoenix they had actually managed to turn into fairly well practiced young adult actors capable of portrayals that expressed substantially more emotion than was hinted at in the script itself. This movie takes the next step, thrusting the triumvirate of Harry, Ron and Hermione on to center-stage of Part 1 for a majority of the film’s screen time and they perform admirably. While there are a few hiccups along the way most of this is due to a few instances of truly sappy dialog and one slightly off-putting semi-nude scene between Emma Watson and Daniel Radcliffe. I am by no means a Puritan but it was a bit cringe-inducing to catch side-boob action on someone that seems to have so recently been in 6th grade. Apart from the ever evolving acting skills of the main characters the screenwriting and directing seems to have gained a measure of necessary experience over the course of the series as well. Because of the length of some of the books, well over 800 pages in the case of The Order of the Phoenix, in many instances it has been necessary to creatively jettison key sub-plots and even add in new plot-devices to help move the story along and keep things fluid. In the case of The Deathly Hallows this is achieved with remarkable results. The story is modified, trimmed and changed in ways that in my opinion convey the heart and soul of the books without descending into a mess of expository dialog and staccato rhythm. There are even bits of dialogue in the movie that do not exist at all in the books, but make a substantial improvement on the overall flow and tenor of the narrative. |
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