Movie Review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1

Title: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part

Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Ralph Fiennes

Released: November 19th 2010

Running Time: 160 minutes

Grade Rating: B

Warning: This review will contain spoilers. If you haven't read the book or seen the movie yet, please be careful if you don't want parts of the plot ruined.

Harry has been burdened with a dark, dangerous and seemingly impossible task: that of locating and destroying Voldemort's remaining Horcruxes. Never has Harry felt so alone, or faced a future so full of shadows. But Harry must somehow find within himself the strength to complete the task he has been given. He must leave the warmth, safety and companionship of The Burrow and follow without fear or hesitation the inexorable path laid out for him.

Okay, I'll admit it. I haven't read a single Harry Potter book. Ever. I only own two. But, I have seen all of the films, soooo I really did want to review the penultimate installment of one of the biggest movie franchises in the history of the world. It doesn't seem like ten years ago that Harry Potter, a short bespectacled boy with a bowl-cut, took his first steps into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I don't know if you've noticed but the films seem to be getting darker and darker as this saga progresses. I thought I liked this; it added to the intensity and mystery of the films and always kept you craving more and more. However, I feel like Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, oversteps the mark just a tad.

The tone of this film is extremely solemn. It's bleak. It's dark, gloomy, depressing, intense, slightly bizarre etc. The fun and magical excitement of the previous film is about as present as Hermione's fashion sense. The entire films takes place outside the grounds of Hogwarts, therefore you don't get the same feeling. I don't know how to put it. The atmosphere of the Harry Potter films that we've all come to know and love isn't there. Instead, the atmosphere is cold and isolated. Having the wilderness as the setting really emphasises the loneliness of this film. The fun, wonder and magic seemed to have been sucked right out and replaced with helicopter sweeps of travel-brochure views. The backdrop looks like one of those serious desktop backgrounds you get when you've bought a new computer. Everything was different and I didn't really like it.

Unlike the other movies, The Deathly Hallows was mainly centred around the characters. They are beginning to grow up on us, ya'know. It is all about the emotions rather than the magical special effects and jaw-dropping fantasy creatures. I sorely missed it. The closest we get to a fantastical beast is Dobby. Oh, rest in peace, Dobby; you cute, little, trainer-clad, sock-loving hero! *wipes away a tear* Anyway, the majority of the film centers on Harry, Hermione and Ron as they journey alone to stop the evil Voldemort. This makes for lots of slow-moving, drawn out moments with the three friends trying to make headway in their search for the Horcruxes while their friendship is strained by a collective frustration and jealousy. I started to feel very uncomfortable when things began to get messy between the chums. Especially when, Harry and Hermione start snogging...NAKED! I mean, what happened? When did this start happening. I know it didn't really happen because it was all in Ron's imagination and everything but it's really hard for me to accept that these children's characters are thinking about these things. It was very un-Harry Potter like and just plain creepy/ weird.

Lord of the Rings is the only thing I can compare this to. The forests and the bearded guy and the search for a semi-inanimate object. I can't help but stay on the same subject of the depressiveness. If I went to the cinema on Christmas Day and watched Harry Potter and the Philosipher's Stone, it would put me in that Christmasey mood. If I had gone to see The Deathly Hallows on Christmas Day, I would just go home and go straight to bed. It was too dark and too distant to the other films and that's why I didn't like it. That's pronbably the only reason. The acting was good and so was the character development although I would've liked to have seen more...magic (and happiness). Let me know what you thought!

Movie Review: The Lovely Bones

Title: The Lovely Bones

Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weisz, Susan Sarandon, Stanley Tucci
Released: February 19th 2010
Running Time: 136 minutes
Grade Rating: C+/B-

When we first meet 14-year-old Susie Salmon, she is already in heaven. This was before milk carton photos and public service announcements, she tells us; back in 1973, when Susie mysteriously disappeared, people still believed these things didn't happen. In the sweet, untroubled voice of a precocious teenage girl, Susie relates the awful events of her death and her own adjustment to the strange new place she finds herself. It looks a lot like her school playground, with the good kind of swing sets. With love, longing, and a growing understanding, Susie watches her family as they cope with their grief, her father embarks on a search for the killer, her sister undertakes a feat of amazing daring, her little brother builds a fort in her honor and begin the difficult process of healing. In the hands of a brilliant novelist, this story of seemingly unbearable tragedy is transformed into a suspenseful and touching story about family, memory, love, heaven, and living.

It's true, I don't really do movie reviews but as The Lovely Bones is a book to movie, I decided to write one. Straight after watching The Lovely Bones for the first time, less than twenty-four hours ago, I knew that I was dissapointed. After hearing so many things from my friends, I was so excited to finally watch it. What I thought was going to be a brilliant movie, fell rather flat in my opinion, and here's why...
 

I haven't read The Lovely Bones but it was fairly obvious to me that the book would be different to the movie. The story in itself covers many different emotions. At times it's quite chilling but within the space of two minutes, it could revert back to a cheerful, happy tone. It is said that the film is all about hope and dealing with someone who has died but I didn't find that. Apparently the book isn't scary and the tension is less dramatic. In the movie, there is tension just around the corner and whilst some may say the scenes aren't scary as such, they are quite gruesome and dark. I think Peter Jackson focused too much on the eerie, dark parts of the film instead of digging deeper beneath the surface. I felt as if everything was just on the surface. There wasn't much character developement and nothing was fully explained. It was as if someone was reading a two hour long, brief overview of the book with major details picked out. When Susie's mum left, she just left and we had to except it. When she came back, everything was fine and dandy and that was it. When we found out that Ruth Connors could see Susie, we just had to except the fact she could. How could she see her? Why didn't she tell anyone?

 

On the note of characters, I thought that there was hardly any need for two or three in particular. Ruth Connors is described as the local weird girl. When Susie dies, she discovers that Ruth can see her. And that's it. Why was Ruth even in the film? She had about ten minutes total screen time and the fact that she could see Susie's spirit hardly even mattered. Susie's love interest Ray Singh also had about ten minutes screen time. I think in the book, he's quite a big character but in the film he didn't need to be there. He didn't change or alter the plot in any way shape or form. He was just swinging in the back like a prop. On the other hand, I thought Susie, Lindsey and George Harvey where excellently portrayed. Saoirse Ronan who plays Susie is an incredible young actress and really brought her character to life. Lindsey was my favourite character. She was very brave and caring and I also thought that she was quite well developed, even though she didn't get as much screen time as she should've had. George Harvey was extremely creepy to say the least but I still would've liked to have learnt more about him. Why was he doing these things? He just sort of came out of nowhere and started killing people even though that wasn't the case.

 

The director, Peter Jackson, focused too much on the imagery and graphics of the movie instead of on the plot developement. The wonderful world of the in-between was too much of a contrast between the thrilling scenes, it felt like the two didn't go together. It would go from fun and frolicking to death and chopping up bodies and putting them in safes. Ick. The plot is too simple. It doesn't convey the wrought-out emotions with much gravity. When Susie died, I felt as if it never really hit-home. We knew she was dead but nothing was ever really shocking. There wasn't really a point in the story where the characters said, 'Okay, it's final. She's dead.' It failed to capture the right mood and clever story-telling. The plot was never really about the horrific aftermath of disgusting murder, it was more focused on the crime and discovering who the killer was. The only character that cried about Susie's death was her mother and that only lasted for about twenty seconds before she goes galavanting across the world which is still left unexplained.

 

Despite my negative review, The Lovely Bones wasn't a terrible film. It was quite entertaining but that was as far as I would go. The emotional developements between the characters and plot where put in disarray due to the fancy graphics. An not-quite-there film with a phenominal cast.