"Deathly Hallows" Pt. 1 Review / SPN is still awesome which is still old news to everyone else

[flowrs4ophelia]

I was very, very satisfied with this one, but I think I appreciated/enjoyed it more than I loved it. By this point in the series the plot has become pretty complicated, and there was a lot of set-up to cover even without covering everything perfectly. Besides that, though there are still some moments of humor, it reflects the tone of the book very well which is not just very dark compared to the others but much more urgent and focused. And there are a lot of points in DH like the hella creepy encounter with "Bathilda" that are important but just not the most exciting scenes to watch play out on screen. I guess without a fun and light-hearted tone with more laughs in the beginning, watching this movie as a fan who already knows the books well was unfortunately almost tedious for me at parts, and it actually took a while for me to really get into this one.

But this makes a lot of sense considering it's just one part of two. This is a very long movie so it has a very long build-up stage, and most of the best stuff from the book is naturally not in the first half. After so many parts of the movies before this one have felt really rushed, I can only be really grateful that the last adaptation is free to move slowly and let you really feel the heaviness of everything that's going on. The time Ron is gone actually lasts long enough for his absence to really sink in, for instance, and the numerous attacks and close calls and "Yes, this can still get worse" moments create a suspended feeling of danger and dread that's all the more effective during the long, quiet breaks from the action the film is allowed. I didn't come out of this thinking of it as my favorite HP so far and feel like my reaction was somewhat lukewarm compared to others', but it was more than promising enough to get me not just very excited to see Part 2 but anticipating it to be amazing.

A nice surprise for me was that the music was actually done by Alexandre Desplat. David Yates always worked with Nicholas Hooper before, with a decent but forgettable score as a result both times, and I'd just assumed he would be doing it again and hadn't heard anything about the change. Though Desplat is great with more delicate and emotional material, he isn't exactly the greatest imaginable choice anyone could come up with for what is going to be a very action-heavy conclusion to an epic (of course the most ideal situation would be if John Williams had never stopped working on the franchise). But he's a very strong composer and I feel a lot less nervous about the final HP being in his hands.

As much as the Harry and Hermione dancing scene is surely polarizing the whole fandom because of course the representation of the ships or lack thereof is more important than anything, it was actually an unexpected highlight of the movie for me. It would never belong in the book, and it could have been so horrible and out of place if not done right or with a too-happy-sounding song choice. But I thought it was a beautifully bittersweet moment that added some levity in the middle of a really intense and tragic movie while still being just as heartbreaking as I remember the whole period of the book with the trio separated being. I mean, since when was Emma this good? She is so believably still a wreck inside even while Harry's getting her to smile a little, so they keep just the right balanced tone to make it work.

Emma actually kind of stole the show, in fact. This is such a surprising revelation considering how unimpressive her performance has often been before but is perfectly appropriate due to how much Hermione truly shines in DH as a quite formidable force of intelligence without which Harry and Ron would be totally hosed indeed. The torture scene was really horrifying all because she made it convincing while we never even saw much of what was being done to her. She and Daniel used to stand out as some of the only weak points in the cast, but now the acting abilities of the three main stars seem a lot more balanced.

Speaking of the torture scene, I really hope there aren't a lot of morons taking little kids to see this. I thought another highlight of it was that gorgeously done animated sequence of the Tale of the Three Brothers, and it occurred to me that this part probably had to be animated so they could show a guy hanging himself and another one getting his throat slit without it being too graphic and frank even for a PG-13 rating.

— — — — —

Still going through Supernatural ridiculously fast. I'm now over halfway through Season 4 and have just these things to say:

1. Bobby is the fucking man.



2. I liked Ruby a lot more when she wasn't possessing a bad actress.

3. My sister and I a couple nights ago...

Me: (staring at computer screen) Dude...There's an episode of season 4 titled "Criss Angel Is a Douche Bag"...
ninety6tears: ...Are you serious?
Me: I knew I liked this show for a reason.
ninety6tears: You can't have any idea how many times I have said or thought those words, and Supernatural has an episode called that.

LMAO. We might also have picked up the habit lately of calling each other "Jerk" and "Bitch" all the time...

Comments

[ninety6tears.livejournal.com]

I have to agree with somebody on my f-list who pointed out that the only problem with the torture scene is that Ron and Harry weren't freaking out enough. Ron is supposed to hear Hermione screaming and totally lose his shit. And to add my own thoughts, man, Luna is Luna, but she can be a really tedious character when she just saw a friend of hers get nabbed upstairs for Bellatrix to go to town on, and is just airily greeting her friends in surprise. Sometimes her character is performed so cartoonishly (I'm fully aware JKR would probably disagree) that I just want her to fucking get with the picture because it only makes her seem brave in a stupid way.

Having never touched the fandom, apparently a well-known fact of the fandom is that the film writers are total Hermione fangirls and Harry/Hermione shippers and try to get as much of it under the wire as they possibly can (It's been pointed out that she basically is saying Ron's lines in a lot of the earlier movies and that Ron comes across looking like he's never good for much of anything). And if this isn't total b.s., the dance scene is like kind of a product of that, but not. It's unfortunate that we have this romance-obsessed outlook that makes it impossible for a theater crowd to just watch the damn scene instead of shifting in their seats wondering where this is going, because guys are girls are never just friends, right? And without the meta-awkwardness of H/Hr shippers it's a perfect scene and it really evokes what I think their relationship is like.

[flowrs4ophelia.livejournal.com]

apparently a well-known fact of the fandom is that the film writers are total Hermione fangirls and Harry/Hermione shippers and try to get as much of it under the wire as they possibly can
Um, seriously? That sounds like exactly the kind of irrational and bitter bullshit R/H shippers who don't like the way they're represented in the movies would say. It's totally true that Ron's characterization in the early movies was kind of sucky, but it's not OMG AN EVIL H/HR SHIPPER CONSPIRACY.

If Harry/Hermione shippers want to see some scenes like that through a shippy lens then I hope they have fun with that. I can't imagine being such a wanky belligerent ass that I'd want to shit all over that by accusing the writers of deliberately making some changes from canon all in the name of making Ron look like an inferior choice of boyfriend.

[dreamingkitty.livejournal.com]

I liked Ruby a lot more when she wasn't possessing a bad actress.

Thank you! Well, if you mean the same actress I do. *lol* Seriously, I really liked Katie Cassidy as Ruby and wasn't too happy with that other actress. :(

[flowrs4ophelia.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Katie Cassidy was great. I just find myself watching all the scenes with the new Ruby thinking they would be ten times better with her still playing the character.

[evrdream33.livejournal.com]

I guess without a fun and light-hearted tone with more laughs in the beginning, watching this movie as a fan who already knows the books well was unfortunately almost tedious for me at parts, and it actually took a while for me to really get into this one.

I didn't come out of this thinking of it as my favorite HP so far and feel like my reaction was somewhat lukewarm compared to others', but it was more than promising enough to get me not just very excited to see Part 2 but anticipating it to be amazing.

Thanks for that. I totally agree. I felt bad that it was all a bit anticlimatic for me coming out of this movie, but it wasn't that I felt like it wasn't good 'cause I know it's all necessary set up, but I'm quite anticipating the final film.

[peripety]

Someone on my flist commented that while most of the other HP films are more like plot summaries, this installment better balanced the character's emotional development with the story. I didn't reread the books before going to see the film and I actually think that the film unfolded better for me because of that. I wasn't anticipating or expecting anything.

I agree that Hermione steals the show and that Emma's performance really sells Hermione's resolve in spite of the personal costs. I thought the dance scene was charming and bittersweet and it played out exactly as it should have and, as always, the shippers will see what they want to see :)

[http://users.livejournal.com/_thirty2flavors/]

I guess without a fun and light-hearted tone with more laughs in the beginning, watching this movie as a fan who already knows the books well was unfortunately almost tedious for me at parts, and it actually took a while for me to really get into this one.

Oh man, yes. I liked the movie okay but I really did find myself bored in parts, which I'm sure is not what they were going for. I think I reread this book too close to seeing the movie (I read it in September) or something, because it did leave me kind of cold. Good, sure, better than the previous in terms of acting, sure, but... dull a lot of the time.

The dancing scene, for me, like a lot of the interactions with Harry and Hermione, fit within the movie-verse but distinctly doesn't fit within the book-verse, and even though I accept those two things as different entities, it's scenes like that which really drive home the "this is not the book" feeling for me, so it's hard for me to warm up to them that much. Additional scenes like the Burrow burning down don't bother me, but scenes that force me to remember that Movie Harry isn't really Book Harry etc do take me out of the experience~.