Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One

Rating: 4.75/5

The beginning to the end, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One brilliantly sets the scene for epic conclusion that follows.

Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) has been set a special mission by Professor Dumbledore (Michael Gambon), and that is to hunt down the remaining horcruxes, pieces of Lord Voldemort's (Ralph Fiennes) soul that must be destroyed in order to bring an end to the Dark Lord's rise to power. Of course, with a quest this dangerous, Harry cannot go it alone, no matter who much he wishes he could. Endangering anyone's life but his own for the sake of his journey seems out of the question to Harry, but his two best friends Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson) refuse to let him go it alone.

The trio have been planning for weeks, making sure they will have everything they could possibly need to find the ever elusive horcruxes. After the wedding of Ron's brother, Bill (Domhnall Gleeson), their quest gets a jump start when Death Eaters attack, causing Harry, Ron and Hermione to flee and begin their dangerous mission. They don't even know where each day will take them, but they know they have to do something that will weaken, and hopefully destroy, Lord Voldemort.

Years ago, when it was first announced that they were going to split the final Harry Potter film into two parts, I remember being a little frustrated that I was going to have to wait an extended amount of time to see the momentous conclusion to my most beloved book series hit the screen, but that thought was momentary. It didn't take me long to realize how great the decision to divide the book in two was. It allowed for much more of the source material's content to make it into the film's final cut. Had they tried to fit everything from the last book into one film, the concept of the horcrux hunting would likely have been very muddled, and even by splitting the two films up, there were some aspects to the plot that I could see as being confusing for someone who was only watching the movie and had never read the book, such as who exactly Grindelwald was and how he fit into the Deathly Hallows, so it was a very smart decision to not try and overly jam pack the one movie. I'm sure there was a definite financial reason behind the division, but overall, I feel it made the hardcore Harry Potter fans happy too.

Though I love the fact that Deathly Hallows is split in two, the only major drawback is that the first film is going to be primarily exposition. Personally, I don't have an issue with this, but I can see how some people may find this first half to be a tad boring until the last half hour or so. To me, I think the first Deathly Hallows movie really gives the audience a chance to see how the skills of each actor portraying the famous trio have grown since their first appearances in The Sorcerer's Stone. The challenges Harry, Ron, and Hermione battled their first year at Hogwarts seemed minute compared to what was ahead of them in The Deathly Hallows, and therefore the performances had to match the seriousness of the journey the characters faced. Of the three of them, the person who impressed me the most in this film was Emma Watson. Hermione has had many moments to show her skills in both magic and books many times before in the series, but the Deathly Hallows was really her time to shine. In this film, Emma Watson's character is presented with numerous occasions to display her abilities in magical combat, but she also faces many new frightening and intense emotional endeavors. Watson brings justice to the literary heroine, and makes her for me, the standout role of Part One.

If I could draw one negative from Deathly Hallows Part One, and that's not easy to do, it would have to be something left from the narrative at the beginning of the film. I fully understand that it is virtually impossible to include every moment from a book when translating it to the screen, but sometimes, there are scenes that are too important to cut. There's a moment in the book where Harry finds some form of peace with the Dursleys before he embarks on his quest. It is in this scene that we, as dedicated fans and onlookers of Harry's journey, not only get some closure to that part of his life at Privet Drive, but also get to see another side to his Aunt Petunia. We get to further understand her character, and maybe really see why she's been so hard on Harry for all these years, and though it may have been previously thought impossible to do so, start to sympathize with her. It is a great and powerful moment for all the characters involved, and it is a real travesty that the scenes, that would likely only have added an extra three to five minutes at the most to a film already over two hours long, were chosen to be excluded.

Though I always watch Deathly Hallows Part One and Part Two back to back, they are technically two separate films, so I must review and judge them accordingly. Missing scenes aside, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One is a brilliant penultimate movie to bring a close to the film saga of the Boy Who Lived. It ends in the perfect spot, making it nearly impossible to not watch Part Two immediately after.