Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part 1

Harry and his arch enemy.

Although I have watched one or two films over the holiday period the instantly forgettable Harry Potter was my only visit to the RBC Film Theatre. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part 1 (2010) is the first part of J K Rowling’s seventh and final book in the Potter saga, incidentally the second part is not due for release until July 2011: a very long wait considering that Parts 1 and 2 were apparently shot back to back over an 18-month period. It was decided to split this final book into two adaptations for the big screen because the producers felt the story is so dense, and to resolve the saga with any creditability at all, it should be told over a longer period, debatable, this film is very much over long! If viewers have not seen the previous films or read the books they have not a cat’s chance in hell to follow what’s going on, even my good self, who has so far seen all the previous six movies, found it a little difficult to follow at times. Directed by David Yates, who as well as directing two other Potter movies, Order of the Phoenix (2007) and Half-Blood Prince (2009) directed the six part TV drama State of Play and the two-part drama Sex Traffic (2004).

We have now been watching the main protagonists getting older over a ten year period without, it would seem any apparent improvement in their acting skills. In this new movie we only get to see the adult actors spasmodically which I felt is a chronic waste of talent and would have made a far more entertaining film if we had seen more of them. The plot involves our three intrepid heroes’ on a quest to find Lord Voldemorts Horgruxes, dark magical objects that are the secret behind the evil one’s immortality. When Potter films have been described as dark, take dark to mean baffling!