Critique: Harry Potter 8

Yesterday was a success! Two friends and I went to see the eighth Harry Potter film. Quite a sentimental event for me. The Harry Potter films began when I met the majority of people I know to this day; now they end when we all part ways to different sixth forms and the like.

As you may have gathered, I love to read, although I started reading Harry Potter quite late. After the fifth film, I read the first book. I enjoyed it, but I didn't think about the others too much until two years ago when I went to holiday to Scotland. It would have been a pain to bring six books with me, so I got the audio instead. Stephen Fry was a good reader and I enjoyed them, too. Audio books aren't the same, so after Scotland I sought the books and read four to seven because no one had two or three.

For all those interested, here, in dual positions, are the Books and Films in the order of favouritism.
   First Place: .........One, Seven.......................................................Five, Eight.............
   Second Place: .....Three, Six, Five............................................Four, Six, Seven........
   Third Place: .......Two, Four.........................................................One, Two, Three.....

NOW THE REVIEW:

Utterly amazing. I sat down with my bag of Magic Stars and the meaningful music began.Anticipation, at the max. The footage started, and it was a good choice. They had the Voldemort ending from the last film and made it the beginning of this film. The flash of white was bigger, and in this case that made it better.

The way they constructed this film from the book, the choices of what was kept, changed or left out, was sheer brilliance.
   However, I hold strong to the belief that the two films should have been one long one. No part is boring. I can prove this with my friends. One of the ones that came with us hates 'magical humbo jumbo' but she was transfixed. She said she wanted to see more!

As always, whilst excusing my use of character names, five of the characters really stood out: Le Strange, Snape, Luna Lovegood, McGonagall and Mrs. Weasley. All are based on superb, flawless acting, and the last two are on events, too.
   I loved that Mrs. Weasley got some fighting action, but I was sad to see Le Strange go: she does the lunatic role well.
   McGonagall having a lot of screen time was a good decision because as an actress, she is one of the best and she deserves all the screen time she got and more. Doing her 'always wanted' spell and fighting Snape were very entertaining.

Things that tickled me:
   McGonagall's 'always wanted' spell
   Seamus getting to blow things up
   Dumbledore telling Harry 'well of course its inside your head'.

Nineteen Years Later. Using the music from the first film was a great decision.
   But herein lies my, I'm quite proud to say, only complaint: Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny. What are they wearing? The year of killing Voldemort is 1997, add nineteen is 2016. People would not wear those clothes in 2016! Or have their hair like that. The only thing realistic was the bear bellies on the two men!
   Herein closes my only complaint.

The rating: *****. I don't think there's much more to say.

Critique: Harry Potter 7 (film)

Yesterday, I watched Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One. It's taken forever to get hold of the DVD, but my friend felt sorry for me because another one is taking me to see Part Two on Sunday. Hopefully.

I thought that it was very good, like they always are. But they do do too much of the not-playing-music thing. If it was done less, the running through the woods scene would have been amazing; really fast paced music like the main menu on the DVD would have bee perfect instead of no music.

Action was fighting for existence in the film, although that isn't a bad thing. The amount of action in each film has been building and building, so that, wrongly, many feel like HP7 doesn't compare to the others. The last film probably has lots of action in it, so the lack in HP7 will just make the action in the last one seem even bigger and better. Clever tactic, Harry Potter People!

I really liked what they did at the beginning with the three characters doing their own little things. The Story of the Three Brother's cartoony bit was utterly brilliant. The Dursley's not getting more film time was disappointing, but it wouldn't have been anything that moved the story along so no wonder their film time was limited.

The last five minutes or so felt very unwanted as if the editors were fed up by that point but not fed up enough to stop it being brilliant. It is over two hours long so I don't really blame them, but they'll make it up in the eight film! If they don't I know a few people who might cry...

So star rating? **** and a half. The extra star would have been there if all of my little moans were resolved. A shame, really, because the acting was flawless. I especially liked the person who played Bathilda, that was very good. ***** for her!