Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

[Warrior 4 Jesus]

I saw it yesterday. Excellent movie. It covers roughly the first 2/3rds of Rowling's book. Sombre, slow and introspective with bursts of high-octane action (well-paced). The story is largely character-driven (like the book); at times rather creepy and dark and so very good. The acting, music and script are all of a high-quality. I was surprised to see the acting Daniel, Emma and Rupert delivered. Great stuff! I enjoyed the humor and the 'guest' appearances of many of the cast members of years past. Dobby, the house elf was awesome. I was hugely impressed by how well the mood, danger and intimacy of the novel were translated into movie form. Easily the best made of the series but not as fun as some of the others. Definitely not for children. 8.5/10

[Bobtheduck]

Well, It opened in the US a day before my wedding, so I wasn't able to see it there, and it doesn't open in Korea for a few weeks, so I don't get to see it for a while, but I managed to see the first 35 minutes of it (how? Magic!) and what I saw was incredible... EXCEPT THE REMOVAL OF DUDLEY'S REDEMPTION!! That scene was in my top 5 in the book, and it's not there... They made up for it with Hermione's scene... Holy crap, that made me tear up.

I can't wait to see it for real, but it definitely looks to be the best movie in the series so far. There's only one way that part 2 will be better than what I saw, and that's if they pull an adaptation MIRACLE on the Prince's Tale.

I'm still iffy about the naked hermione scene (which I haven't seen yet)... I'm just thinking... Why? Why do they always have to ramp those things up? They did it with Moaning Myrtle in movie 4, too.

Now... nitpicky comments:

Hermione's scene was... way better than the book. There's some drawbacks to sticking almost exclusively to one character's perspective (except the opening scenes in 4, 6, and 7... Rowling COULD have done Hermione's scene that way, too, but whatever) and this was beautiful. I guess that's not really nitpicking, is it?

No Dudley. BOO-URNS!

No conflict between Scrimgeour and Harry. It's like, they just introduced him to kill him off. I wish they'd intro'd him at the proper time.

Hedwig's "hero's death". Come on. Sounds like they caved to PETA. Not every death on an innocent involves jumping in front of a bullet, you know...

The trace. Yeah, this movie does it fine. It's just that they'd ignored it up to now. Kind of bites them in the butt.

In any case, that's all I've got for what I saw. Not enough to come close to ruining it. They had moved in the right direction with HBP, and they're really far in the right direction with this one. Can't wait to see the whole thing. Slowly taking Angela through the movies, and explaining the missing details to her so we can watch it together when it hits Korea.

[Atria35]

I'm still iffy about the naked hermione scene (which I haven't seen yet)... I'm just thinking... Why? Why do they always have to ramp those things up? They did it with Moaning Myrtle in movie 4, too.

The good news is that you don't really see anything that you wouldn't see if she were wearing a bikini- the implication is that they're nekked, but it's low enough to remain a PG13 movie. And it makes sense within the context of the movie.

All in all, I thought this was FANTASTIC. I loved the movie. The fight scenes were a little jumpy, but everything flowed very well, and was very true to the book. I didn't notice the music as much as in the previous movies, but I thought that some of the time they overplayed the music in the other movies. In this one, minimalist music played up the scenes, IMO. And the Godric's Hallows scene? FABULOUS!

I will be eagerly awaiting the final installment in the series.

[the_wolfs_howl]

I saw the movie on Tuesday, for my little sister's birthday! ^_^ I was so excited, because this was the first time I was able to go to a Harry Potter movie with my sisters. I've been reading the books to them, and we miraculously got to the exact cutoff point the night before we saw it o.o

Anyway, I loved this movie. I've heard many mixed opinions of this since I saw it, but I honestly think this is the best Harry Potter movie yet. They've been especially magnificent since David Yates took the helm, I think (though each of the earlier films had many merits of their own), but this went beyond my wildest dreams of what a Harry Potter movie could be.

The main thing I don't like about movies 4-6 is the pacing. Naturally, they've got a whole bunch of stuff to cover with the size of those books, and I think they did a pretty impressive job with 5 and 6, but it always felt really rushed to me. There was so much content stuffed into the movie, and it all moved so fast, that the only way I could keep track of the story was because I know the books. So I really liked the way they did this movie, because it didn't feel like a headlong rush to the credits, but they kept up the pace at the same time.

And that leads to another thing. I don't really get why lots of people complain about the Trio spending so much time walking around and it being boring. It didn't feel to me like there was much walking around and not doing anything, because every scene with them on the road was furthering the plot and character development.

And the acting in this movie! Oh my goodness, I could hardly believe I was watching a Harry Potter! The Trio have improved their acting skills so much even since the last movie, I think. My favorite scene in the whole movie was the fight between Harry and Ron, because it felt so real. I also thought of the other scenes where Harry was supposed to be crying and mourning in the other movies - when he finds out Sirius "betrayed" his parents (PoA), when Cedric dies (GoF), when Sirius dies (OotP) when Dumbledore dies (HBP) - and then compared them to Harry holding Dobby's dying body. The amount of emotion and realism Dan Radcliffe was showing in that scene completely blew me away, and actually the main reason I started crying at that point was because I saw real tears streaming down Dan's face.

The music was also phenomenal, I thought. I've actually been really disappointed with the scores for the previous movies, and have only gotten three separate tracks from them because all the other tracks were either general soundtrack-sounding pieces, or variations of the same theme. (I was spoiled with the wonder that is the LotR scores, I guess.) But as soon as the music started up with the logo in this one, I perked up. I had that amazingly epic credits music playing in my head for the rest of the day, and for the first time ever, I intend to buy the whole soundtrack for a Harry Potter movie. I now have great respect for Alexandre Desplat.

Hedwig's "hero's death". Come on. Sounds like they caved to PETA. Not every death on an innocent involves jumping in front of a bullet, you know...

Thank you for saying that! I thought I was the only one who liked the book version better. I actually have no idea why Hedwig's death is so monumental and tragic, but all that aside, I thought it was really lame that the way Voldemort was supposed to figure out which was the real Harry was because of a bird flying in someone's face. It's much better to have Harry reveal himself with his use of Expelliarmus, because that is kind of his signature spell.

Oh, and the Three Brothers part! That was so good. It made the story feel like a fairy-tale, but also slightly creepy/sad/mysterious, which is the way I've always found that story.

And no one's mentioned the Ministry of Magic infiltration! I loved that part, it was so funny to see these unknown adults walking around and acting like the three main characters.

The only scene I really didn't like was the Harry-Hermione dance. That felt really weird to me, and while I understand a couple of the explanations for it, I don't really like it.

Things I wish they hadn't taken out:
-Dudley saying goodbye to Harry (though David Yates has said there will be some kind of scene like that in the Deleted Scenes on the DVD)
-Harry's confusion/disillusionment with Dumbledore, especially finding his family's graves in Godric's Hollow (though I assume that will play a bigger part in the eighth movie)
-Harry and Ron hugging after the Horcrux is destroyed, and Harry telling Ron, "She's like a sister to me. I thought you knew that."
-Wormtail's hand strangling him because Harry saved him before

But all in all, it was an amazing movie.