Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1: Max's review

Manchmal läuft es wie im Märchen,

wo's immer gut ausgeht,
wo alles eine Fügung hat
und man von Schicksal spricht ..

Let it be said from the outset that seeing this film in German didn't affect the viewing experience much.

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Spoilers ahead
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So I reckon that this one was the darkest and scariest so far. It's strength comes from the fact that whoever wrote the screenplay has padded it out with so much from the books for fear of missing a minor detail that it feels nice and padded without overflowing. The downside to this is a lot of talking and moments that will probably make only an ounce of sense to all but die hard fans.

Back in the days of The Chamber of Secrets or even Prisoner of Azkaban, someone who'd maybe read half of the first book could go along and watch and be able to make sense. Not a chance with this one. There are so many moments full of vaguely irrelevant things that appear for all of 2 lines in the book.

So this 7th film sees Harry and co. skipping their final year of school to hunt down and destroy pieces of Voldemorts soul, or horcruxes for those of you not in the know. It opens with the bad guys having an evil meeting at Malfoys house, where a still noseless Voldemort ponders where Harry might be next. And Snapes story is different to all the other faceless death-eaters - he couldn't possibly actually be a good guy, could he?


And in a scene meant to be shocking, Voldemort kills some teacher we've never heard of or seen in any film before. Pretty outrageous.

To cut a long story short, Mad Eye Moody and co. break Harry out of Privet Drive, which starts off as a pretty cool "Ahhh, everybody is a clone of Harry" scene, which descends into something directed by Michael Bay.


Its pretty to look at, like Hagrid driving the giant motorbike the wrong way down a motorway being chased by a bunch of black clouds, but otherwise it just kind of shouts "Look! Special effects! Check out these explosions and cars spinning out of control!" Muggles probably get killed. Hedwig attacks some guys face and then gets blown up.



Following this is more irrelevant stuff. A criminally underused Bill Nighy turns up and gives Harry, Ron and Hermione stuff that Dumbledore left in his will. Ron's is the only interesting one. And then theres a good hour of the three of them teleporting to a variety of different forests and deserted landscapes, meeting people who inevitably cause trouble.


Basically, every building the three of them visit WILL get destroyed and people get injured. And gradually, they learn the story of the Deathly Hallows, which is told in the medium of stylised CG animation that could have been a complete film by Tim Burton. Works, though.

What with the Harry Potter franchise still clinging by its worn fingertips to the "these are family films" standpoint, theres inevitably the teenage love/falling out scenes. The blossoming romance between Harry and Ginny is explored for all of 2 minutes, and its pretty crap anyway. Ron gets angry at some point in one of the thousand forests they camp in and storms off. Harry and Hermione have a dance to some music that comes on the radio, in possibly the gayest montage of the entire series.

Harry ponders in a sweater made of pubes.

This part in the middle is actually where the film sags and you pray for someone else to die; this stuff is so contrived and repetitive. It feels occasionally as if the producers sat down after finishing the film and said "Ok, good effort guys, but I think we need more scenes showing teenage jealousy, insecurity and betrayal. Work it in wherever you can. When they're in a forest would be good."

And then Helena Bonham-Carter arrives, as the most awesomely big haired unhinged evil bitch ever to grace the screen. She is awesome, as ever.

The hotly anticipated Dumbledore/Voldemort love scene

Hmmmm. I guess the only other major thing is the Nazi-esque portrayal of the Ministry of Magic, churning out posters and propaganda calling for the rise of a racially pure society. I don't recall it being quite as explicit in the book, but it sort of works.

I sound pretty critical at some points here, but it is pretty enjoyable nonetheless. There's plenty of crazy handheld camera stuff, everybody plays their part well. The film, as with its predecessors, is flawed by the constraints of time; my prime example is the death eaters, who have complex back-stories and major roles in the book, but in the film universe are just faceless generic losers. Once again, die hard fans only. At one point, Hermione points out "Look, its Dolohov". Yeah, but it counts for jack-all here, Hermione. He is just a man with a beard.

And the other book-to-film problem is that the latter can give no explanations to minor characters thoughts and intentions. Again, easy to clear up in a novel with unlimited writing space. Visually, it just translates as "every single minor character who has ever appeared in the whole series must play some crucial role in Voldemorts downfall".


But generally good. Daniel Radcliffe expands his dramatic spectrum from "eyes fairly wide, teeth gritted, breathing heavily" and "shout at everyone about everything!" to include a few more alternatives. Ron remains funny, as ever. Every British actor worth mentioning appears. Hermione is pretty hot.

Run! Run like its a handheld camera!

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I give it 8 out of 10. I give Dobby 10 out of 10 for his brave stab at heroism. Heh, see what I did there? Stab. He dies. From being stabbed. With a big knife.


Stab.

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[EDIT - 23rd December]

When Harry/Ron/Hermione wear the horcrux round their neck on the chain, they become angry! I wonder which other mildly successful fantasy film involving a crucial part of an evil dark lord worn round the neck on a chain which feeds off the wearer's fears and anger they might have ripped that from?

Yay Iraq

But of all these friends and lovers,
There is no one compares with you.
And these memories lose their meaning,
When I think of love as something new ..

Man, its been a while since I was on here.

I'm gonna kick off todays post with more happy news from Iraq. If you haven't heard, 52 have been killed after Iraqi security forces stormed a Catholic church in Baghdad where gunmen were holding people hostage. A statement on a militant website reported that the Iraqi Christians in the church would be "exterminated".

This quote, in the aftermath, comes from the Iraqi Security Chief (possibly the crappest job in the world), Abdul-Qadr al-Obeidi.

"We took a decision to launch a land offensive .."

It was hardly gonna be a beach assault was it?

".. and in addition an airdrop .."

An airdrop of what? Cluster bombs? IDIOT.

"because it was impossible to wait - the terrorists were planning to kill a large number of our brothers, the Christians who were at Mass."

So Christians are considered "brothers" now. Thats a new one.

He continues:

"So the operation was successfully done."

YOU KILLED 52 PEOPLE! Granted, you're in Iraq where you're more likely to die than anything else, but there must be a higher threshold of success than "52 dead"?! You are STUPID sir.

" .. All terrorists were killed."

SO WAS EVERYBODY GODDAMN ELSE!

".. And we now have other suspects in detention."

YES, THE ONES YOU DIDN'T MANAGE TO KILL AT THE TIME, PRESUMABLY!

But then, in his defence:

"Witnesses say they saw US troops on the ground and US military helicopters hovering above the scene, but the extent of their involvement is not yet clear."

Given their record, it was probably them. Especially after the 'rescue' of that aid worker Linda Norgrove last month. The one they rescued with a hand grenade.

Anyway, according to my stats I have readers in Iraq. I wonder what their take is.