The Best film of the series. Warner Bros. finally got a book right

Rating: 10/10 (16 November 2010)

I will say first, this review may and will contain spoilers.
First, I am a huge harry potter fan and the last book is my favorite in the series having read it 5 times and when I heard they were splitting the book into two films I was beyond ecstatic cause i knew they were going to do this justice. I was lucky enough to get passes to an advance screening last night. Granted the changed and cut a few things which i was okay with, a couple things which i was not (hopefully will be explained in part 2) but for the most part was VERY faithful to the novel and some scenes were word for word from the book. A lot of people are going to complain that it is slow and boring but I will say this now, if you have not read the book or are not a fan of the series, you will NOT like this movie or will have a hard time following it. it relies heavily on story and heavily on the struggle and isolation on these three characters as their on their own away from the protection of hogwarts and dumbledore now that he has died and have to find these horcruxes on their own to destroy voldemort and save the wizarding world.
The film opens with Rufus Scrimgor the ministry of magic addressing the press assuring everyone everything's okay in these dark times, then shows Hermionie leaving her house for good and olbiviating her parents memories which is quite touching then the Dursley's leaving privet drive for the last time as harry awaits the arrival of the order to get moved to a safe location. followed by voldemort and his death eaters planing on capturing harry. he makes it safely to the burrow in an exciting chase sequence where someone dies, then the wedding of bill and Fleur where harry discoverers info about Dumbledore's past and the necklace around Xenophilus Lovegoods neck. then the ministry falls, death eaters attack and the trio Apparate and begin their journey alone. from this point is almost exact from the book with changes here and there. the changes i didn't like were they didn't explain who bill was, they didn't explain the mirror at all (if you read order of the Phoenix you know what it is) and they cut the phineus negilius scenes so the whoever sent the silver doe how were they suppose to know where they were if the charms and protection was around the camp site? other then that its spot on, the Malfoy manor scenes were so compelling and exciting. i loved how they did the horcrux locket scene with Ron destroying the horcrux. the best scene for me was when they were at Xenophilus Lovegoods house and Hermonie told the story of the 3 brothers (a very very cool sequence). and the ending was VERY sad and powerful and a good way to end part 1 making you want more. so overall a perfect adaptation to the first half (or so) of the book and i cannot wait for the final conclusion in the summer which I'm hoping is going to be better or equally as good. and many complained the camping scenes dragged in the book but they didn't really for me in the movie. i felt the movie went by fine and i couldn't really tell it was 2 plus hours. i cannot wait to see it again.