The Beginning of the End

Rating: 10/10 (19 November 2010)

Waiting in line at 6:30 on November the 19th, I was waiting for the midnight premiere of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows; Part 1. Despite the obvious excitement, I was worried. The last two installments were poor in my opinion and David Yates (the director of parts five, six, and seven parts one and two) was still at the helm for this one. Once I left the theater the next morning at 2 AM my faith was restored. The film was beautiful and moving beyond measure. It is easily the best film of the series since Prisoner of Azkaban, and it creates great excitement for the final installment.
HPDHP1 is the first part of the conclusion to the series. Harry Potter knows that he has to destroy a number of magical items (known as horcruxes) before he can attempt to kill his life long enemy and the most dire threat to the wizarding world, Lord Voldemort. For those of you who have not read the books or seen the movies, this film will make almost no sense to you. Without a decent understanding of the Harry Potter series this film will be completely incoherent. However for those who have followed along, you should have no trouble with understanding the film.
The biggest concerns with installments five and six were that they each had one element that was necessary for the movie to be great. The fifth was missing good acting and the sixth was missing a good mood. Part seven is missing neither. The mood is set from very early on and keeps hold even when some lighter moments do arise. Those lighter moments which ruined part six, due to corniness, were wholesome and relieving. The acting which ruined part five, again due to corniness, was genuine and emotional. It brought a lot of true feeling to what could have been an emotionless film.
Some die hard fans will say that the film was ruined due to parts that were missing from the book. I tell you to ignore those nay-sayers. JK Rowling (the author) had huge amounts of input into this so I think you can safely assume that anything that was done, was done to make part two, the most spectacular finale you could imagine.