- Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures
- Release Date: Nov 19, 2010
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91Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1 also bravely faces the future, slipping with expert ease among the thrilling mass of complications (and complicated set pieces) that Rowling throws fans in the final sprint, then guiding the faithful to the fate that awaits everyone in this world, the moment called The End.
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90The film might have ended at its action-packed and ultimately moving climax, but screenwriter Steve Kloves goes one step farther. He finds the perfect cliffhanger, one that emphasizes just how dangerous young Mr. Potter's situation really is and definitely leaves the audience anxious for the next chapter.
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89This is a quest movie, with a lot of ground covered, and just as our heroes never stay long in one place or feel safe in their surroundings, neither does the audience.
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88Menacing and meditative, Hallows is arguably the best installment of the planned eight-film franchise, though audiences who haven't kept up with previous chapters will be hopelessly lost.
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88The first third is brisk and witty, the middle third gloomy and the finale of Part 1 not so much a cliffhanger as a grim, inspiring tease, a masterly build-up to put "I can't wait for part 2" on every Muggles' lips.
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88Boasting a rich look and an engrossing storyline, it's the rare "to-be-continued" film that doesn't leave its audience feeling cheated.
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83The film continues the tone that "Half-Blood Prince" set: we're leaving childish things behind, and human and magical concerns are starting to mingle in a grown-up way. When "Part 2" hits theaters eight months from now, I suspect I'll appreciate the buildup to a (literally) explosive finale. It's going to be a long wait.
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83Part 1 of the final installment, 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,' is another scrupulous adaptation of J.K Rowling's books.
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80The first part of Deathly Hallows has plenty of invigorating imagery alongside the pro forma narrative elements.
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80This installment is all about the grown-up kids. The three young leads - especially Emma Watson, who can do more with a still face than any actress her age - are all terrific
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80Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 is probably about as good a movie as you can make from just half of a rather complicated book. But then, it's not just a movie but a promise: When Part 2 arrives, next summer, a cloud of desolation is likely to descend upon us.
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80Don't you expect any hand-holding, either. Director David Yates throws us straight into Harry's waking nightmare, as he searches for a way to defeat Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) while keeping himself and his friends alive.
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75It's half of a really good movie, full of the enchantment, emotion and incident for which the Potter series has become so fanatically cherished.
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75Among the leads, Radcliffe alternates between playing the wet blanket and the dry wit, and Grint strikes a few sparks as his ambivalent protector. It is Watson who catches fire as the strategist and soldier of this penultimate Potter quest. Watson's so good that one wishes Rowling had built her septology around Hermione Potter.
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75Despite providing an opportunity to spend 147 minutes in the company of people we have grown to know and love over the years and advancing the narrative toward its final cataclysmic confrontation, The Deathly Hallows Part One underachieves. At a time when Harry Potter should be soaring to new heights, it remains curiously grounded.
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75Overall, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 is a harrowing and substantial set-up to what promises to be a climactic final chapter in one of the most popular and successful move franchises of all time.
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75Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 is slower and stranger than any of the previous films, simultaneously raising hopes for a haunting finale while dimming hopes for a magical one.
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75A handsome and sometimes harrowing film, and will be completely unintelligible for anyone coming to the series for the first time.
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75With that kind of financial imperative it's something of a miracle the Potter films have been, on the whole, good. One or two, very good. One or two (the first two), less good. This one's good.
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75For a studio so clearly willing to take risks with so many of its movies, this particular movie has a whiff of exploitation. Rowling wrote one epic funeral that Warner Bros. requires us to attend twice.
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70Deathly Hallows I actually manages to be involving and kind of artful about the boredom and loneliness of heroism, while sounding a long throbbing drumroll for next summer's grand finale.
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70The seventh and last volume in J.K. Rowling's series of best-selling fantasy novels has been split in half for Hollywood purposes, making this long, dour, impressive and handsome motion picture the penultimate chapter, largely designed to build up the heavy-duty suspense before the climax is delivered next year.
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Dec 8, 201070The best bits of Deathly Hallows are the moments that play with the tensions of late adolescence.
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70The movie, in other words, belongs solidly to Mr. Radcliffe, Mr. Grint and Ms. Watson, who have grown into nimble actors, capable of nuances of feeling that would do their elders proud.
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70Director David Yates spins the series' most expansive, structurally free-form chapter yet -- lumbering and gripping by turns, and suffused with a profound sense of solitude and loss.
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70The best portion is an animated story-within-the-story, supervised by Ben Hibon, that recalls Lotte Reiniger's filigreed shadow puppets as it sets the stage for armageddon.
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70It's not a bad movie, but it is very much a transitional one.
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67Part 1 of Harry Potter's long goodbye is technically impressive as usual, especially an animated shadow play explaining the whole Deathly Hallows myth.
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Dec 8, 201063Part I is more disappointment than disaster. It merely rolls along like something off an assembly line. Untouched by human hands.
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63A lot of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part One feels like slushy set-up for the climactic all-out battle due in theaters next summer. The movie doesn't even give us the expected cliffhanger ending, although I'd be lying if I said I'm not eager to see how everything turns out.
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63It's grim, funny in one sequence about shapeshifters, vivid in moments of violent action, nearly devoid of plot twists and marked by long patches where Harry, Ron and Hermione camp in the woods or by the sea or near a frozen lake and ponder What It All Means.
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Dec 8, 201060The first and third acts are over-busy; the middle one moves like an arthritic house-elf. Still, a decent smattering of magic moments and tension's pumped up sky-high. Bring on Part 2.
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50More than even the most faithful of the earlier episodes, this film feels devoted above all to reproducing the novel onscreen as closely as possible, an impulse that drags it toward ponderousness at times and rather sorely tests the abilities of the young actors to hold the screen entirely on their own, without being propped up by the ever-fabulous array of character actors the series offers.
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50The tale is about meeting Death and comes with this moral: When The End arrives, better to embrace it with love than to try to cheat it with avarice. Hey, if nothing else, Part 1 has got some nerve, so greedily refusing to practice what it earnestly preaches.
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50I hope that in Part 2, Yates and screenwriter Steve Kloves give Fiennes a better send-off than Dame J.K. did in her less-than-wizardly climactic wandathon. Having made us sit through two and a half hours with no payoff, they'd better not go all Muggle on us. Next time, we want magic, people.
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50To be fair to Deathly Hallows, the filmmakers have tried hard to fill the proceedings with battles and chases and debilitating curses. Genuine filmmaking excitement, however, is harder to provide.
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50Most of the content of this film is wheel-spinning or conscious setup for the final installment, and that feels apparent at every melodramatic moment.
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50Beautifully shot but a soulless cash machine, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 delivers no dramatic payoff, no resolution and not much fun. Hopefully we'll get that in the final installment next summer.
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40Stuff still leaps out of the screen -- the snake striking a victim, cars sent flying by Death Eaters -- but few things in the movie lodge in the audience's mind or heart.
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30What's worse, some mysterious movie curse has turned the three once-lively adventurers into wood.
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30The whole thing does seem preternaturally stained with Weltschmerz.
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25This one is a long, archetypal journey that screeches to a halt a few stops short of its destination.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 173 out of 219
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Mixed: 20 out of 219
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Negative: 26 out of 219
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10
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10