Marcus: Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010)

          I've read all the Harry Potter books and seen the movies but I want to say right away that I'm not a fan. It's not that I dislike the series, I'm simply impartial. I read each book exactly once, and I can't even remember Richard Harris' face without looking up a picture from the first two movies (he was the original Dumbledore). I don't own any Harry Potter fan gear or merchandise, and I will lose almost every game of Harry Potter Trivial Pursuit that I take part in. I've merely gone with the flow on this cultural phenomenon, I haven't studied the minutiae of the mythos, and I have no regrets about this. I also believe this allows me to write a review that is relatively unbiased, let's see how it goes.
          "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1" is quite different from all the other movies in the franchise. An important thing to remember about making any movie is knowing what the intended audience is going to like. For example, fans of Transformers love action, explosions, cool CGI effects, and shitty writing. Twilight fans are much easier to please because they don't even need the action, explosions, or cool CGI effects. Harry Potter fans love the whimsical magic, the diverse characters, the escapist fantasies and momentary release from the realms of reality. It's fun to imagine a world like that of Harry Potter, where you're free to turn invisible or dissaparate on a whim or totally do it with a Death Eater.
          My point is that, what I think Harry Potter fans are less inclined to, and paradoxically what I think this movie succeeds best at, is technical mastery of cinematography. The camera work in this movie is superb. The settings are gorgeous, and I mean the natural settings, not even including the ones with giant chambers and impossibly constructed ramshackle shacks. The outdoor shots could be assembled into a well compiled montage of reasons to visit Britain, even at its gloomiest. At this point, I won't be surprised if the movie gets an Oscar for cinematography, or at least a nomination. But the real shame about this is I feel the effort will be lost on most fans. Obviously they expect a good movie, but the work here goes so far beyond simply showing the spells and creatures and villains, and yet I feel the appreciation will be lost amongst many, for the major issue I will now address.
          In comparison to all the Harry Potter movies that have come before it, Deathly Hallows: Part 1 is really uneventful. It's a shame because some people may say it's boring, but there's a distinction to be made. It's an interesting movie, a lot of important events happen. But a lot, and I do mean A LOT of the movie is made up of glorious scenery shots and pans and blocks of heavy dialogue with minimal action that just aren't what the Potter fan base is all about. The books were great because they allowed so much freedom of imagination, to picture for ourselves the world as we wanted. Now that we're being shown the world, there's nothing else for us to imagine, and because this movie is really lacking in action packed fight scenes, especially throughout the middle, all we can do is sit and watch them talk in tents or shacks or old houses. They're filling in the pictures, essentially doing for us what was the best part of reading the books.
          The thing I do appreciate is that they do a bloody good job with the visuals, the setting, the locations, the mood. But no matter how well it's done, people are always going to prefer the image they originally had in their heads. That being the case, a lot of the movie can come off slow, which again is necessary to set up the cinematic orgasm that is sure to be Part 2. But I feel that this movie could never be a total hit because it doesn't have action, and it needs to compensate for that with other visuals. It's tough for me to say because this movie is executed so well, and I know it's going to be hugely successful, and that many people would disagree with this opinion. But it's reasons like this I will always be a "the book was better guy," because no matter how close a movie comes in quality (and Harry Potter gets about as close as they come), you do the fans a disservice by asserting your visual imaginings over theirs, and that's never a good thing.