Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Part 1 (12A.)
Directed by David Yates.
Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Ralph Fiennes, Helena Bonham Carter. 146 mins.
It is the beginning of the end of the Potter saga and Potter 6.5 is a rather different proposition to the previous ones. There is no Hogwarts in this one (Hooray) and a greater concentration on the three young leads (hmm.)
It’s a magnificent piece of film making (in some ways the best of the lot) but a crummy bit of story telling. After some bland early ones the series has gradually developed a really strong, distinctive visual style and this is the best looking one yet. It helps greatly that this film isn’t tied to the school. Instead the leads go off on a big camping trip so the film takes in lots of great British locations and there are some superb set pieces. It’s not a spectacle of Avatar proportions but at least it’s something new, not generic variations of what you’ve seen loads of time before.
But then there’s the plot. The decision to split the final term and the resulting extended running time allows them to do something more than the skim-read adaptation of previous films which isn’t always a blessing: this one is even more alienating and confusing for the casual viewer who hasn’t read Rowling’s tomes.
In this one Harry and the rest of the Famous Three are still reeling from the death of Gandalf and must now find the sword Excalibur and a series of all powerful artefacts with the help of Golem as they try to defeat Darth Vader. I find it a great help that much of the plot is borrowed from other stories, they were only times when I had any idea what was going on.
There’s so much information to take in and little help in deciding which of it might actually matter. There’s an interupted wedding scene early on and I couldn’t tell you who was getting married or even if they did get married. Harry has his little sweetheart but once he and his two pals are off in the woods she is completely forgotten. Just about everybody in current possession of an Equity card is in this film but almost none of them get more than two scenes and everybody has some bit of exposition to deliver.
It is like some great generational family get together where nobody can go for more than a minute without raking up some story of who did what to whom way back when and then what so and so did to whathisnamecannotbementioned and on and on until you are begging them to just get on to one of the thrilling sequences where they point sticks at one another.
Directed by David Yates.
Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Ralph Fiennes, Helena Bonham Carter. 146 mins.
It is the beginning of the end of the Potter saga and Potter 6.5 is a rather different proposition to the previous ones. There is no Hogwarts in this one (Hooray) and a greater concentration on the three young leads (hmm.)
It’s a magnificent piece of film making (in some ways the best of the lot) but a crummy bit of story telling. After some bland early ones the series has gradually developed a really strong, distinctive visual style and this is the best looking one yet. It helps greatly that this film isn’t tied to the school. Instead the leads go off on a big camping trip so the film takes in lots of great British locations and there are some superb set pieces. It’s not a spectacle of Avatar proportions but at least it’s something new, not generic variations of what you’ve seen loads of time before.
But then there’s the plot. The decision to split the final term and the resulting extended running time allows them to do something more than the skim-read adaptation of previous films which isn’t always a blessing: this one is even more alienating and confusing for the casual viewer who hasn’t read Rowling’s tomes.
In this one Harry and the rest of the Famous Three are still reeling from the death of Gandalf and must now find the sword Excalibur and a series of all powerful artefacts with the help of Golem as they try to defeat Darth Vader. I find it a great help that much of the plot is borrowed from other stories, they were only times when I had any idea what was going on.
There’s so much information to take in and little help in deciding which of it might actually matter. There’s an interupted wedding scene early on and I couldn’t tell you who was getting married or even if they did get married. Harry has his little sweetheart but once he and his two pals are off in the woods she is completely forgotten. Just about everybody in current possession of an Equity card is in this film but almost none of them get more than two scenes and everybody has some bit of exposition to deliver.
It is like some great generational family get together where nobody can go for more than a minute without raking up some story of who did what to whom way back when and then what so and so did to whathisnamecannotbementioned and on and on until you are begging them to just get on to one of the thrilling sequences where they point sticks at one another.
