Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part One – Review

The second last film in the eight-part epic (spanning over 10 years of filming) that is Harry Potter. I watched this today and I couldn’t help but realise that if people hadn’t read the books or done a bit of research in to the storyline, they would have no idea what is going on. The amount of assumed knowledge is pretty big. The sixth film (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince) goes in to a little about the Horcruxes but nowhere near enough to fill a casual viewer in on what is going on. Nevertheless Harry Potter is a huge book series as well as it’s film adaptations… and those who are serious about watching these films, most of them have already read the books.

This movie is unfortunately not as good as it’s predecessors. As much as I love the Harry Potter series this one falls a little short. Hopefully it will redeem it’s self in its conclusion when it hits our screens on the 14th of July (mark it in your calendars). Most of the other movies could work as a stand alone adventurea, which I believe adds to the appeal of the films and although the later books relate more to each other the films still work as individual stories. Deathly Hallows does not.

All that grumpiness out of the way and all criticisms said, this movie is fantastic for a fan (unless you’re so devoted to the books that you feel the movies let the whole series down) it starts to tie up loose ends (or at least puts them in a bundle for the next movie to tie it off) and the acting, I feel, is brilliant. One of my favourite stars, Emma Watson, improves with age (she’s so dreamy). The story line has enough action and comedy to just satisfy the viewer… just. I might be wrong in saying but it feels to me like this movie is another Order of the Phoenix (the fifth film), good but just not great.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part One: Average