Harry Potter and the Boring A$$ Camping Trip of Magic

^^^The poster pretty much sums up the movie

Alright, let me start this off with saying I dig the Harry Potter franchise.  I will admit, when the books were blowing up I thought it was stupid and didn't understand the whole thing behind it.  (much like the Twilight hype) 

Although I saw the 1st two films in the theater, I honestly didn't really like the series until the 3rd installment.  The 1st two films suffered from UBER Chris Columbus family itis and honestly that was the main demographic for the early books and films.  But, like many franchise films, after the basic characters are developed, the later films can just kick it in 5th gear and drive.  (much like many of the comic book films... X-Men, Batman, Ironman etc.)  This is what was able to happen by the time "The Prisoner of Azkaban" hit.  The characters were pretty well developed and the ultimate storyline throughout the books were set in motion. 

Sit, and enjoy the ride. 

"Prisoner of Azkaban," "Goblet of Fire" & "Order of the Phoenix" all kept everything in motion as Harry dealt with the problems given to him in each installment.  By the time "The Half Blood Prince" was finally released, after about 6 months to a year after it was finished, the films took a different tone.  Not on action, but on moving pawn pieces.  Granted you had your splashes of action here and there, but the focus was more on drama and setting everything up for the ultimate showdown.  (which will be the final and 8th film)

Enter "The Deathly Hallows" (part 1)  Granted the last book has a lot to cover and from where we leave off after the last film, the crew has to really get down to brass tacks if they're really going to wrap it up.  So, what to we do with SO much stuff to cover?  If we have one movie that's about 2 1/2 to 3 hours, it's too short to really cover what's in the book and if we split it into two films... well, much like the two Matrix sequels it feels really disjointed.  The only time I've seen a film/series that did this and it worked well was with the Kill Bill films.  Between Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 you had two completely different films, styles and tones that ultimately would have made one real disjointed movie if it was released as one.  So, that's the elephant in the room with the latest Harry Potter book.  What do we do?  We break it up.

The result is a film that finds our heroes on the run and trying to discover how to defeat "you know who."  It starts off with a great pace, but then loses steam after they narrowly escape those who are chasing them.  The majority of the rest of the film then is mostly dialogue with little action as they are dealing with inner conflicts within their circle and trying to figure out how "you know who" can finally be destroyed.  When looking at the bigger picture, I understand that the film maker is trying to put our heroes at their lowest lows before wrapping up the 3rd act in "The Deathly Hallows (part 2)" BUT, with this film it does not translate like "Empire Strikes Back" or "The Two Towers" where you can look back and argue that it's the best film in the series. 

Now does that mean that this film is a complete let down?  No.  Although I didn't like the pace of the film and thought it lost steam after the one hour mark I understand where this film sits and how it plays in the ultimate storyline.  This may end up being one of those films that later on when everything is said and done, I'll probably dig it more, but I don't know and can't say at the moment.  I will say that when watching this in the theater I honestly wanted them to wrap it up and I haven't felt like that in a movie theater in a long time.  Maybe it is because this film is all build up with no release and therefore the audience, i.e. me, feels cheated.  The payoff that we want we don't get for another half year, so the 2 1/2 hours we spent in the theater was all just to prep up for the summer.   It reminds me of when I went to see "The Fellowship of the Ring."  There was a middle-aged couple sitting in front of me and when the credits rolled the husband turned to the wife and said, "3 and 1/2 hours and that's it?!"  "There's 2 more movies," the wife replied.  "DAMNIT!!!"

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (part 1)    3/5