Tedious and very unsatisfactory

Rating: 5/10 (20 November 2010)

I am not a big fan of the Harry Potter books, but I did not hate them either.I appreciate their vivid main characters and the fluid "voice" from author J.K. Rowling, but I think that the saga suffered from a severe case of "giantism", unnecessarily extending itself with "surprising" revelations of a doubtful importance; carloads of new characters who are either simple fillers or convenient victims of inept villains; and an out of control "ret-con" to justify the twisted narrative roads which lead to nowhere.I honestly think that the story about the young magician could have been told in only three books, but I think that it was Rowling's creative (or economic) ambition what unnecessarily inflated the series.As for the film adaptations of the books, I did not like Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban; I found Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix to be mediocre; and I liked Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, because they condensed the bloated books into competent screenplays, by extirpating the "straw" and concentrating on the narrative knot.Unfortunately, that did not happen with the film adaptation of the last book, which was divided in two films as a desperate financial maneuver to extend one of the most successful franchises in film History a little bit more.And having seen the first part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, I felt it exactly like that: a marketing trick, and not as a genuine culmination of the saga.
When Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows: Part 1 ended, I asked to myself: Two and a half hours for this? I think that the important elements from this film could have easily occupied the first half hour from the following film without losing the spirit from the book or the growth from the main characters.Big part of this film is a boring "road movie" in which the three main characters run through woods, grassland and mountains...with which purpose? Was that really their plan to destruct Voldemort? For being such a redundant and unnecessary movie, they could have invested some minutes in "Previously on Harry Potter", or something like that, in order to have a clearer perspective of the situation and the past events.Of course that that will be unnecessary for the "hardcore" fans who know the seven books by heart and spend hours discussing about the sexual tension between Ron Weasley and Bellatrix Lestrange (or similar subjects).And I am sure that those fans will find Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows: Part 1 much more satisfactory than me.But as a casual spectator, I found it to be extremely tedious and repetitive.
Besides, the melodrama in this movie feels artificial, while the "comic relief" is not funny at all and the action sequences lack of any emotion or suspense (even though the special effects are very well done).And the least I say about the central mystery between the "horcruxes" and the relics, the better...it does not make too much sense and it sins from the typical "deus-ex-machina" from Rowling.On the positive side, I have to mention that Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint bring solid performances.
I think that the biggest problem from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows: Part 1 is that I could never feel a real narrative impulse, or the organic development from a story; I simply found a list of situations and places the film has to visit, but without a genuine cohesion between them.So, in conclusion, I personally found this film to be very boring and unsatisfactory...and if that were not enough, I was left with the impression that this film is nothing more than a financial trick from the executives from Warner Bros. to squeeze more money from the fans of Harry Potter who have been faithful to the saga for almost 10 years.