Harry Potter and the Deadly Pacing

Rating: Null/10 (15 July 2011)

I suppose it was inevitable. As J. K. Rowling became a phenomenon her books got less and less editing though they needed it more and more. With the cynical, money-grubbing decision to make two films out of the last book a similar thing has happened. The triangular friendship and love of Ron, Hermione and Harry provides the personal, human tension of the over-all story but we all know that it can't be resolved until the last chapter/reel. The consequence is this movie bloated with empty calories to deprive us of the price of a ticket bought more to say we've seen the whole epic rather than because we've been truly entertained. We get a few loose ends tied up and a brilliant animated sequence telling the back story of the Deathly Hallows. Unfortunately more of the movie than any narrative line can stand consists of the three young people wandering the English countryside to no particular purpose except to pad out the space between opening and closing credits. At best the film is an over-long trailer for the final installment. Poor Harry and his friends haven't been this badly served since the series wisely, thankfully jettisoned director Chris Columbus and his attempts to drag the series down into the hell of Home Alone with witches. The best I can say of this film is that someday, in order to sell more copies of the series, someone may re-cut the films and combine Deathly Hallows Parts I & II into something like a watchable film. I have no confidence in that, however. The fashion is to add scenes that were left on the cutting room floor and, usually, should have made it to the cutting room incinerator. I am a father of the children of the Harry Potter generation and thus once removed from Potter-mania. Still I also have a deep affection for Daniel Radcliffe's and his Harry, Emma Watson and her Hermione and Rupert Grint and his Ron. I have watched them grow as I watched my daughters grow. Thus it's partly out of fatherly affection that I dislike this installment as a great disservice to three young actors who have worked hard and deserved better.