|
The Harry Potter franchise, film by film, usually leaves me momentarily satisfied. The films - while never truly resonating with me - usually don’t disappoint with a narrative that simply refuses to fulfill its own imagination. They also don’t bore with an inexhaustible amount of filler. Usually. There’s always a first time, though, and that’s exactly what occurs in Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows (Part One). Darker than the rest but not stronger, the setup to the franchise finale barely warms up to its audience as it is mostly filler with very little fire.
Director David Yates has set the bar incredibly high for the finale of this esteemed series with the glossy flash-and-bang paced quickness of his last two Potter outings. Unfortunately, that energy and dramatic tension that he brought to the series is grossly missing for the clunky and overstretched middle of his latest entry. Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows (Part One), while once again looking really pretty in the special effects department, is literally nothing but a narrative about an overextended camping trip that – unnecessarily split into two separate parts – can’t satisfy in the very basics of story department. It’s a shame that this film is needless exposition. It really is because all of its weaknesses could have been avoided by keeping its narrative as excitingly concise as the last two films.
The story starts out interestingly enough; the action is quick and tight as Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Hermione (Emma Watson), and Ron (Rupert Grint) are whisked out of harm’s way and hide as Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) uses his dark “muscle” to collapse the once magical world we’ve grown to love over the years. There are a few flashes of CGI aerial action, a few moments of great tension as they infiltrate the Ministry of Magic, and even a few familiar faces return, yet, when they settle into Hermione’s magical tent, the film quickly loses all sense of dramatic purpose and sucks down all the filler fumes the Potter fans have been huffing all these years. As a result, the film simply runs out of steam for a good hour and a half and forgets that it is supposed to be building toward something climactic.
Yeah, those fans out there begging for a more complete Potter film get their wish in this two-part money grab from Warner Bros. And you know what? The film suffers as a result. Every single problem with this film could be solved if it were simply ONE film. One film, folks, not two. The first part of this fractured tale becomes – after its first forty minutes - tedious and, well, simply dull in its bloated execution with no resolution to any of the issues presented. Enemies are quickly wiped out. Friends are killed or simply go missing without explanation. While this might have happened in the book, well, a movie is a movie and we need to see these things happen. When the end of the film finally arrives, it announces itself in such an obviously “dramatic” military drumroll but there really are no surprises left. There’s no gasp from the crowd; no crying out that the filmmakers can’t end the movie there. No, you simply are let the hell down. Completely.
If there are but three saving graces to this film, it is with Helena Bonham Carter’s performance as Bellatrix Lastrange as she does crazy supremely well. She should be heralded as a goddess for her fascinating performance in Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows (Part One) as she, along with Dobby the house elf (voiced again by Toby Jones), are the only ones bringing any amount of energy to the acting component of the film. The third aspect that is really strong is the magical fairy tale that comes to life through some interesting animation. Now, THAT story I could watch for hours on end and not get bored. It is dark, tightly scripted, and surreal.
Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows (Part One) is dark. Really dark. It isn’t for kids either; this is for the older crowd as it is pretty graphic with its bone-exposed violence and overt sexuality. While I am sure this will please some fans, the near-nude Harry and Hermione scene is completely out of place in this picture and it is glaringly obvious. Yates is great with the gothic horror, but sometimes his visualizing gets a tad out-of-hand and this scene – as well as another where Potter zips up a bare-backed and braless Ginny - is one of those occurrences.
The action scenes – specifically the shaky-cam forest chase – are surprisingly an untidy mess throughout the film as very little is established with the lens and the action is equally unfocused. Regardless, if this film existed without the “surprise” chase scene through the forest, I simply wouldn’t want to see it. The film needs the forced action of that scene in order to keep the focus of those less amused by the big void that is its story.
There is little humor to Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows (Part One) and even less charm. The cast is older and wiser, yet – as they escape down the English country side, hopping from one campsite to another – only get on each other’s nerves during the course of this fractured narrative. There’s an awkward scene of dancing between Harry and Hermione, but other than that, all pleasantries – like the magic of this series - are gone. Gone, too, is the brilliant theme music written by John Williams that chugged its way through the previous films. Not once do we get the familiar theme.
It doesn’t matter what I write, the film will make a ton of money. Let’s be honest, though, the film never needed to be split in two; it needed to be edited to one three-hour movie. I can't imagine sitting through another 146 minutes of Potter just to see Evil destroyed by a magic wand battle. There’s no sense in creating two movies with needless filler and false staging (the Potter and Ginny kiss) when the first one can’t in itself satisfy as a setup to the ultimate showdown between Good and Evil. Go ahead and berate me for giving a Potter film less than three marks. This one deserves it. Trust me, it doesn’t even satisfy in some basic elements of story construction.
Even as a “bridge” film, Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows (Part One) disappoints its audience as it simply leads to nowhere….really slowly.
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for some sequences of intense action violence, frightening images and brief sensuality.
