20 November 2010

Beginning With An End

It seems slightly ironic that our first post would focus on the conclusion of an institution. However, the film projector hasn't even cooled off yet and we already can't wait to discuss Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (part I). We might be what one would call fanatics- having read all the books and seen the previous movies- and fanatics, as you may know, are not easy to impress. 


As many fans of the books have come to realize since the first film, this film did not contain every scene from the book.  One from the book we would have liked to have seen in the movie was a scene at the beginning with Harry and his cousin Dudley, in which Dudley actually apologizes for being awful to Harry for all those years and thanks him for saving him at the beginning of Order of the Phoenix.  Instead the filmmakers opted to show a more emotionally impressive scene with Hermione removing her parents memories of her from their lives.  For the first time in all seven of these movies Emma Watson has really stood out amongst her cast mates.  While the filmmakers often frustrate the hardcore fans of the books by excising these scenes, it is understandable why they do, especially when in this film they've split it in two just to get as much of the book in there as possible.  The stakes haven't been higher, and for the first time our protagonists are actually embarked upon a quest, sent out into the real world with no help from the adults they have always relied on. 


While most of the reviews out there will focus on how this is a dramatic movie (we don't disagree), and this is the most dangerous and serious of the lot, a six year old would probably switch back and forth from fear to boredom quickly, we do appreciate the occasional wit.  We don't want to ruin anything for you, but Justin found one scene involving a flame to be quite hilarious.  Mallory tends to fall asleep in movies and/or gets squirmy after a while, but this time when the credits began to role even she had no idea that 2 and a half hours had passed.  Having read all the books we knew what was going to happen, but it's been two years for Justin and one for Mallory so we were excited to see what was to come.  A fellow patron two rows behind Justin was way too excited and would announce what was about to happen every couple of scenes.


There are some truly touching scenes in this film, and being a film about magic and wizards it is still capable of maintaining the most realism of all the films.  This isn't the children's film you saw ten years ago at Thanksgiving with your family.  Watching this film we felt we had just as much at stake as the Weasley family (and if you don't know who we are referring to you might want to start at the first film).  We both highly recommend fans of the series see this.  We won't tell you what the Deathly Hallows are, you'll have to watch the movie for that.  In the meantime here's a clip to pique your interest, in case we haven't already.






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