Agenda Movie Club: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part 1)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part 1)

David Yates

2010

I exist in this strange limbo world when I see a Harry Potter movie– I basically know what’s going on, but not really much more than that. I’ve never read the books. I’ve seen all of the movies, but I’ve seen each one only once (except for maybe the first one, but I was in college and experimenting). So I know Voldemort is super-bad, and who Harry and Hermione and Ron and Hagrid and Dumbledore are. Also, Snape. But, off-hand, that’s pretty much it. I spend a good part of each of the movies trying to remember who the heck everyone is, although it’s generally pretty clear who’s good and who’s bad. Generally.

This isn’t to say that I don’t enjoy them. I do. Quite a bit, actually. I just don’t know wtf a horcrux is (actually, I do now– I leaned over during the movie and asked JP, and he said that Voldemort split his essence into a bunch of pieces and that Harry et al have to find them and destroy them. Or something. If I got that wrong, blame me, not JP, he’s a Harry Potter expert.), so that makes it a little hard to follow what’s going on sometimes.

Whatever. I’m going to say that I enjoyed this one more than any Harry Potter movie since Prisoner of Azkaban, which I think must be the best of the series since I mostly sort of remember it. But Deathly Hallows (Part 1) is creepy, and a little scary, and– this is the most important part– basically a chase movie. In fact, isn’t it pretty much Fellowship of the Ring? (Cue the angry Harry Potter AND Lord of the Rings fan letters.) I couldn’t quite figure out why they didn’t just throw the horcrux into Mount Doom and call it good.

Yeah, yeah, this is a simplistic reading of the thing. I guess. I’m not talking shit, I said I liked it. Calm down. Just because someone steals doesn’t mean it’s bad.

Look, I’m not a Harry Potter expert, this is clear. You all can debate amongst yourselves about how derivative the entire series may or may not be (I remember when the book version of Deathly Hallows came out and a couple of friends of mine made me leave the room so that they could have a heated discussion about this very thing). I’ll just say this was absolutely worth my time, even though I’ll probably never see it again.

Oh, also: That “Creature” guy makes my skin crawl. Shudder. And I don’t really remember what the deal is with the elves… were they, like, slaves or something? Is Dobby way more important in the books? Or does he just sort of show up a couple of times to be a ghost in the machine?

And when did Warwick Davis change his name to Warwick Davies?

And can someone explain to me what in the world a “hallow” is? Webster only lists it as a verb.

By the way, let’s all give a hand to David Yates– the guy was pretty much just (“just”) a TV director before they gave him Order of the Phoenix, and he’s done an excellent job, especially on this last one. Good show, Yates.

Update: Oh, I didn’t quite explain why it’s so important that this is a chase movie. It’s because chase movies kick ass. That’s why.