Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1

Like all the HP movies, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is well done. It looks polished, the acting is good, and the story is creative. This one was definitely boring in places, but it kept me interested for the most part.

I like the Harry Potter movies. I've never read the books, and I don't really see any reason to, but I used to watch the movies when they hit a network TV channel for the first time. I think I even saw one of them in the theater. They're always well done; they look great, the acting is good, the story/things in it are creative. I totally screwed up the series for myself with this one, though. I knew I had seen HP 1-5, and I thought there were only 7 movies in the series. I thought Deathly Hallows 1 and 2 were movies 6 and 7. So, since I'd seen 1-5, I thought it was time for Deathly Hallows. How very wrong I was.


The movie opened with Hermione erasing herself from her parents' memory. What? Why was she doing that? Harry's family, such as they are, was leaving their house, saying it wasn't safe for them anymore. Why? Snape had killed Dumbledore. I knew that happened from the internet spoilers way back when the book came out, but I didn't remember it happening. Some tall guy, apparently one of Ron's brothers, was marrying a blond girl. Was I supposed to remember that?

Remus and the wildling from Game of Thrones had big news. I didn't remember them or Mundungus at all. Harry was kissing Ron's sister. When did they get together? Everyone looked older than they should have. Draco's father was suddenly out of favor with Voldemort. Bill Nighy had no introduction, as if we were supposed to know already that he was in the series. I didn't remember anything about the Horcruxes, although I knew what they were from tumblr. Remus' brother died somehow, and I didn't remember getting to see the "Dobby is a free elf" scene, even though I knew all about it. Harry kept looking in some piece of glass, and I had no idea what it was.

So it was a big mess of "did I miss a movie?" and I really should've looked into it right from the get-go, but I just chalked it up to having been a while since I saw the last one. I guess I'll know better next time.

I enjoyed this one just fine anyway, though. The part where they had to infiltrate the Ministry of Magic was pretty funny, although I felt really bad for basically everyone in there, especially that one guy's poor wife. They were just going to leave her there to get killed, or whatever was going to happen to her. It was supposed to be this huge moment of relief and laughter when Harry goes, "Ron, you don't have a wife!" but that guy does have a wife and it's still serious, she's still in danger.

It was so sad when Dobby died! He just wanted to help Harry. And the thing he said, "This is a beautiful place to be with friends. Dobby is happy he's here with his friend Harry." Or whatever, that's not an exact quote. But it was so sad! The CG on Ralph's nose was really bad the first time we see Voldemort. It just looked terrible. Luckily they did a better job with the makeup/prosthetics when we saw it close up later. Rupert looked kind of ugly at first, but I got used to him and he didn't look so bad later on.

I didn't get the big deal about Bellatrix "torturing" Hermione. It was some big thing. But she didn't seem to do much to her, other than lightly cut a word into her arm, which hurt I guess, but not enough for the amount of screaming Hermione was doing. They probably cut out some torturing scenes, I guess. They should've shown us what was in the bloody room at the house with the snake, too. I was pretty proud of myself for figuring it out, since they never told us (I assume it was the body of the actual woman who lived there). Good thing she got all those secrets about Dumbledore out before she died; it looks like they're going to come in handy for Harry.

It was kind of dumb that Ron said he wanted to come back as soon as he left, but he couldn't find Harry and Hermione. They were right where he left them. They didn't go anywhere until the next day. I guess he could've gotten lost. I probably would've been lost. I loved the guy who wound up catching them, though. That guy was awesome. He was like a cross between Russell Brand and Vex from Lost Girl. Not that he was funny or anything, he just seemed cool.

It had some parts that dragged, but it kept me interested for the most part. I definitely would've liked it better if I had seen HP 6 first, though.