Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part One

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Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part One- What the fuck is it about? (Spoilers)

To be honest I've never seen British camping depicted better in a movie than in this one. As much as we'd like to pretend it's true, we don't actually do a little exercise in the afternoon sun as a bra flies across the field and Barbara Windsor flops her tits out. Like this film, the reality is that we actually just sit in a tent as it pisses down outside, we all start to snap at each other, and we wonder if this will be the night that we die. At this point in the series, everything Harry has ever known and loved, including Dumbledore, has gone straight out of the window. So along with Ron and Hermione, they all set off on an adventure to find and destroy several artefacts that contain Voldemort's soul. Sadly they don't really know where to start because Dumbledore figured that setting up little riddles would be more fun than not being a difficult bastard.

So Dumbledore knew roughly where and when he was going to die and didn't think to just mention this super weapon known as the Elder Wand to Harry? You'd think he was in league with the studio and just trying to look for ways in which he could drag the franchise out. Considering the Wand ended up in his grave, wouldn't it have been better for him to just give the thing to Harry before being murdered? Or at the very least say to him, “Look Harry... If I ever die, *wink wink*, then pop along to my coffin and you'll find a little treat for yourself in there”. Instead he draws the symbol in a book and hopes the gang will notice it and begin investigating. I mean, what's the old bastard actually trying to do? Save the world as he should be or trying out for the position of task master on The Crystal fucking Maze?!

So was it shit or not then? (Spoilers)

Ignoring the first two movies, the one thing I've really admired about this franchise is in how it doesn't pander to fans at the expense of a quality adaptation. However, this is the book in which, just as they ripped out the pages they didn't need, a studio executive spotted them and screamed “what the fuck are you doing?!” So instead of ripping the shit out they just took the book, ripped it in half and said 'this is how you make more money, dipshits!' The question therefore has to be whether this movie justifies it's running length or if it would have been better as the first hour of one final film. Especially because they've saved all the fun stuff for Part 2. Do you want to see lots of action? Then you're going to be gutted. Do you like a film with no real beginning, no real end, and in which three characters spend two hours sitting on a rock whilst wondering what to do? Then you're going to fucking love this movie!

At the very least I suppose this film deserves some credit for deviating completely from the formulaic nature of the previous instalments. In fact, it's a lot more like The Lord Of The Rings in that the main three characters are just wandering about whilst trying to figure out how to destroy a necklace. In the case of Ron, it's also a necklace that turns the wearer into a stroppy little dick as though it's the magical jewellery equivalent of having your lie-in ruined. The scene in which they figure out how to break the thing is pretty fun too to be fair. It attempts to show Ron his worst fear in order to stop him from attacking it and so we're treated to a brief glimpse of a semi-naked Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson getting off with each other. Bizarrely I share the exact same fear as Ron, that whenever I see a girl I like I'm worried that a naked Daniel Radcliffe will turn up and kill the mood, so this was very relatable for me.

However as fun as some of the scenes are, I couldn't help but feel nothing had really happened by the time we got to the end of the movie. The most significant thing was the stuff with the Elder Wand which, as mentioned, would have been solved in five minutes had Dumbledore not been such a dickhead. So objectively I'd say that this absolutely would have been better if the split hadn't happened but subjectively I just like this world and am happy to spend as much time in it as I can. Sure this film is a lot slower than the others, but that just means we get to spend time with the characters. I think my favourite moment is the Nick Cave dancing scene which some people hated for being as cringy as fuck. And they're right.. it is cringy as fuck. But friends do do stupid things like that with each other. I'm in my mid to late twenties and my friend once got so annoyed with my inability to shave properly that he grabbed a razor and did it for me. That's not normal, is it? The Nick Cave scene is a sweet little moment between Harry and Hermione and a good depiction of a male/female relationship in which the characters don't want to bang. I mean, fucking Star Wars couldn't even manage that between a brother and his fucking sister.

However to say that the film is slow doesn't mean to say that it doesn't have some fun set-pieces in it. There's the opening action sequence in which all of Harry's friends drink polyjuice potion in order to change into him, acting as a distraction for him to be able to go into hiding. This is presumably when they also all pop to the bathroom to take pictures of themselves as him in compromising positions in case they ever feel a need to blackmail him. There's also the scene in which a little old lady reveals herself to actually be a demonic hissing snake. Which is funny because I'm pretty sure I've known a few woman that are like that too. Finally however, there's also the conclusion in which the gang manage to escape from Jason 'Hello to Jason Isaacs' Isaacs, when Dobby gets knifed in the fucking heart. I mean Jesus that was brutal. I think a lot of people complained about the ambiguity of Sirius Black's death and so the filmmakers thought “right- you want certainty? Well here you go cock-stains!”

Sure this film is basically a prostitute that's been sent out to work by the money hungry pimp-studios. But I think that all of the filmmakers involved have still done the best they can to make what they had to work with as good as it could be. It's not as self-contained as the early entries and so if this was the first Harry Potter film you saw I'm sure you wondered what the fuck was going on. Although if this was your first Harry Potter film I'm sure that the rest of us would have wondered where the fuck you've been. However, although I think this may be the weaker of the post-Columbus movies, it still serves to show how bad his first two entries really were. You really get a sense with this movie that something dark is heading towards us. The first two movies by contrast simply dragged on for so long that I didn't even have the sense that the fucking credits were heading our way. Thanks for reading and see you next time, motherfuckers.