Book vs Movie

Rating: 2/10 (1 December 2010)

Book wins! First, as an introduction to this review, I've seen all the HP movies up to date and read books 1,5,6 and 7. I am a fan of the series, but I am trying to stay above blind influence.
When I first heard for a fact that the last movie will be split into 2 projections, I was worried because of the bad experience with the Matrix, where people who for the first time watched Reloaded felt empty and cheated, because of the incomplete and apparently random story. Only later, while watching on DVD I learned to appreciate M2&3 more, but that was years after. Simply, I think this is a very bad practice for Hollywood, since public expects completed project from a theater - not a TV Series with a cliffhanger.
As I stated before, I have not read all the books, but from what I did, this is by far the most deviated version from the originals so far. First sequel is by far the most verbatim text-to-screen translation and with that respect, Deathly Hollows is the worst. From the very start we have some changes and shortcuts presented, some of them are good, others are pretty bad and didn't help to characters development. First mistake is the wedding scene, where we get so little time to explore all the wonders, there is no secret talks in the house between the actors, the scene between Harry Potter and his girlfriend is completely non-subtle and so on.
Timing. Simply, a viewer does not get a proper sense of time with this movie, and I believe this is critical since this helps viewer orientation to familiarize with the fantasy world. To put a plastic example, the scene where Ron leaves, and later shows up from nowhere lasts like 5 minute difference. Yet, Hermione says to Ron he was gone for weeks! Time is strictly non-linear, some of the scenes are so fast, others pretty much slow, but there are no pointers (via music and scenes fadeins-fadeouts for example) to accentuate those events.
Emotions. Are there really any emotions in this movie? Main actors are flat, really flat (they topped Severus character in coldness) and non-interested in comparison to previous sequels. The chemistry is missing.
But, to be realistic and fair, and put it easier to the actors who portrays the main characters, they are (in present) passing from a childhood to adulthood that bares its own weight, so it wasn't easy for them to get back into this fantasy world as easily as before. In fact, this could be very confusing for them personally (just put yourself in their shoe for a moment.) That is why I think the weight of this sequel should be balanced to other characters more as it was done to a point in the book.
Last, the culmination of the film when the group is captured by the Snatchers was simply not strong enough. I remember while reading the book that was one of the most scariest part (and thought like 'oh, my God, now they are finished!' 'It's over!' and so on.) That is missing from the movie. The scene in the house was simply too short.
In the end, when it comes to best part in the movie, which obviously I haven't enjoyed much, lets say it was the appearance of Dobby elf. Edit: and I almost forgot the three brothers story!
To be completely honest, the last HP book itself is not without problems either, it is much harder than previous sequels for a screen translation. Mainly, because it is full of internal characters drama which is extremely hard (or impossible) to translate on the screen. This is why I believe the movie could be done in a more deep, better technique either by using narration or at least internal thoughts (talking to self) of main character - Harry. His doubts if he is 'the one', connections (dreams, visions) with Valdemort and so on.
I am not feeling comfortable to say next line - but in the end this turns out at the present moment only as a new cash-cow for the studio, since the movie could be obviously 'glued' together in a 3-hour event with better time-management. Future will say whether I was wrong when the sequels gets out and dust setlles down.