Which is why I'm super glad I got a second chance to see HP again last night; even though it was SO SOON after the first viewing, it gave me a second chance to really appreciate what I was seeing. And despite its flaws, there are a lot of great things happening in that movie to appreciate.
I kind of want to write you a dissertation on the way I felt about the book, and how that effected the way I felt about the film, but keeping in mind that this is a film review and I would like to stick to that theme (read: no spoilers included), I'm going to make that a separate entry with a big SPOILERS tag on the front end. Even though I'm an advocate for book-to-movie adaptations, and have written pretty extensively about them (even in regards to the Harry Potter franchise), it's hard for me to separate my feelings about this particular adaptation from how I felt about the book, since it's, you know, the end of the most important cultural touchstone of my generation.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 was a better movie than it had any right to be. The portion of the book that it's covering is largely our heroes wandering around blindly in the woods; it is very similar to the ENDLESS RUNNING that occurs in The Two Towers. But David Yates managed to make it poignant and bleak, with a few key moments of excitement that sky-rocketed my expectations for this final film. If Yates could do this with the interminable camping scenes, what could he do with the thrilling battle of Hogwarts? It's better material and more cinematically written. I was ready to love this movie; I knew I would cry, but I also expected to be left emotionally satisfied by the conclusion.
Well...
Coming out of the midnight show, I was pissed. There were things I expected to see, things that were fairly integral to my love for the book, that weren't included. The movie did not take the opportunities I thought it had to improve some of the shortfalls of the book. There was not enough Alan Rickman. I was disappointed, and I was angry, because it was the last chance of the franchise. It wasn't the ending I wanted. I thought the pacing was choppy and the editing poor (remember what I said about being cranky at midnight?). I spent most of Friday stewing about the fact that I had to go see it AGAIN, which I had agreed to do when I anticipating loving the film.
Now, after having that second viewing, I'm so glad that I did. Some of the issues I had (those missing scenes, mainly. And there still wasn't enough Alan Rickman) remained, but the film is not actually poorly paced OR edited. It wastes no time, picking up precisely where Part 1 left off, and plunges us into action pretty much from the get-go. Our trio is fine form here, bringing their best to the table - and reminding us that even though we met them as babies, they've grown into capable and talented actors. Radcliffe, Watson, and Grint rage and cry and fight and if there is a bit of scenery-chewing, it can be excused because they're holding their own against such formidable talents as Rickman, Maggie Smith, Helena Bonham-Carter and Ralph Fiennes, all of whom also bring their A-game.
I could probably write an essay on each of our veteran actors here, so I'm going to leave it at this: when Voldemort awkwardly hugs Draco, it looks exactly like someone who has never given a hug before but only seen other people do it. It's squirmingly uncomfortable and also kind of awesome.
The other thing I'd like to heap praise on is the visual tone. Yates has pretty consistently given us a chillingly bleak setting, in cold greys and blues and deep haunting blacks; Deathly Hallows serves that up in spades. One of the opening scenes looks ominously down at Hogwarts while a ring of Dementors hang, robes fluttering, in the air; it's the creepiest thing I have ever seen. And, I think, the best thing about the 3D version (which was surprisingly clear and well-deployed), as it gives the Dementors another dimension of ethereal whispiness.
There are definitely still flaws. These movies have always suffered (some more than others) from poor vetting; here, Harry brings up Lupin's new-born son, who has actually never been mentioned in either Deathly Hallows film. Sure, I know about Teddy, but at this point the films have an audience that hasn't read the books, and forgetting to edit little things like this is pretty much unforgivably sloppy. (We all might recall Snape's vehement proclamation, "I am the half-blood prince!" from movie #6, which should have been a revelation...if we'd known at all what that even meant.) I would argue that understanding Snape's relationship with James Potter is just as important to the story as his relationship with Lily: those two people define Snape's actions and motivations through the whole series, and this should have been our chance to finally get his whole story, and we just...don't. This is the shortest of the Harry Potter movies, and it didn't have to be - at the very least, I hate that this pivotal sequence got slashed at the expense of added material.
Alan Rickman has always been good in these movies - here he is FANTASTIC. His performance is subtle and layered and the amount of emotion he relays in one well-deployed eyebrow is astounding. His only flaw is that this should have been the Snape-Show: his backstory, told in a beautifully composed flashback sequence, should have been at LEAST twice as long, and as this was the shortest film in the whole franchise, Yates could have easily doubled the time devoted to Snape without denting the audience's patience. What is there is amazing. There just should have been more of it.
There should have been more of a lot of things. More backstory, more Deatheater deaths, more victorious good guy battle sequences. Maybe fewer inspirational speeches? Certainly more fact-checking by Voldemort (although that's a hold-over from the book, so perhaps Yates is not to blame for that one).
What the movie lacks in accuracy or dedication to the source material, it starts to make up for with powerhouse performances and jaw-dropping visuals (the dragon break-out from Gringotts is my personal favorite). I missed the more personal moments from Rowling's battle scene, where she focuses in on small groups of people; but I loved the sweeping views of the cinematic battle, and the destruction of Hogwarts is nearly as heartbreaking as any character death. It's not my favorite of the Potter films, not even my favorite of the Deathly Hallows halves; as a whole, I'm still a shade disappointed with what I wanted to be the most emotional, jaw-dropping, heart-wrenching film of the series, and it just...wasn't. But it had its moments, and what it did well, it did VERY well.
I just wish it had done more.
