Lack of passion & feel in the acting, Poor directing, Dull and long winded. How did they manage that ?!

Rating: 6/10 (21 November 2010)

First of all, I'm a person who has read the HP series several times over so I do know what I'm talking about. Good:
This is by far one of the best " stuck to the book & plot " harry potter movies.
The scenery and views are beautifully stunning most of the time ( Norwegian valleys and lakes ) but sometimes its a bit Tesco value really ( yeah i mean the bit when they're running away from the snatchers who happen to be chasing them in Bracknell, Berkshire just behind the lookout adventure park )
By far the darkest potter movie so far.
The film is more grown up, responsibility and love of family are at heart of this film especially during turmoil in relationships.
This is where the good stuff ends ( yeah really not much is there )
Bad:
This movie is over 2 and a half hours long. Thats over 150 minutes ! its not good enough to have a 5minute action scene with a bit of spell bashing and exploding dishes and furniture and then have 30 minutes of book reading or guarding a tent. Honestly at some points my eyes where wondering to corners of the screen where I was hoping i would find something more interesting. It was very dull for a lot of the time, how can they have got it so wrong??!! A dull harry potter movie? You need some skill to achieve that, heres why..
I felt COMPLETELY and utterly unconnected to the actors. There was no connection or chemistry between the actors and the audience, I was left completely cold. Now I know for a fact from the earlier movies that these actors CAN have a definite relationship between the audience and yet there was none, not a single scene left me emotionally connected.
This applies to people who haven't read the book, what was Yates thinking ?!? how creative is it to have a fight scene, then the 3 disappear to another place, wait around 30 minutes, another fight or chase then they disappear to a different location. ON 3 DIFFERENT OCCASIONS??!! what message does that send to the audience ? Yeh we've wrapped up 5 films nicely, now lets just milk the audience from their cash. Because that is exactly where this is heading, 6 was atrociously bad but at least it had some humour. This barely has that, apart from Dobby clinging onto Mungundus and a few awkwardly funny moments with Ron and Hermione the amount of humour was next to none. Yes its a much darker and more scarier ( supposedly ) than the others, but there was no tension or excitement. The build up times where almost ridiculous and when you got the peak of the tension there wasn't anything to get your heart racing, or anything you wouldn't expect. 'YAWN' a snake jumps from a whole and tries to eat harry after 10 minutes of him and Hermione creeping around in a dark house full of flies and blood 'YAWN'
I'm so disappointed, all the hype, all the production time and its barely better than number 6. And that is really poor because 6 was a disgrace if I'm honest. The best book was made to appeal to 14 year old girls who'd giggle at the love & relationships throughout the movie. Really if they want to step it up they have to make a 15 and actually make it gruesome and scary at times when it needs to be ! Not to have a 10 minute lead up to a snake attacking harry and biting a chair leg !!( pathetic )
Finally, I cant believe at the amount of good press and reviews this has, are you all out of your mind ?! I tried to look at this in every possible way, HP fan, non HP fan, book fan, non book fan. FROM EVERY ANGLE this movie was long winded, dull, acted without enough feel & passion and poorly directed. And yes I have taken into consideration the fact this is part 1 of the book, and part 2 will definitely be more exciting, but it really seems as if they looked at the feedback from HP 6 and went ' yep the audience didn't like it when we made up stuff, lets stick to the book ' so they stuck the book in the most uncreative, utterly boring story telling fashion. There was no sparkle or anything special setting this apart from the other movies. Think about it, HP1: introduction to the world of magic, everything is new, epic set of tasks which young harry, Ron and Hermione conquered. HP 2 : Epic Quiddich and fight with the Basilisk, HP3: Epic death eater scene and true identity of Sirius. black HP4: Epic maze and Voldemorts ' reincarnation ' HP5: Epic battle, emotional death of Sirius & Dumbledores EPIC fight with Voldemort. HP6: Ehhh, epic flop ? HP7 P1: Epic directing & acting fail ?
MASSIVE disappointment for someone who paid in excess of £15 to watch this and has eagerly waited for months.
5/10 is extremely generous and only awarded because I've always been a HP fan and I love the books and previous movies especially 4&5 which were fantastic. To be fair 50% doesn't even reflect the amount of money I'd pay to watch this, because If i'd known, 5 quid would've been absolute limit.
This is not a bash but really a set of details in what went wrong in the movie, I'm not saying I'm an expert of any sort, but really they should and they CAN do better, we have proof of that earlier on in the series. There were positives, but for a film of this magnitude, this expensive and this famous, it ought to be MUCH better.