Huge expectations not met

Rating: Null/10 (23 July 2011)

I can't even describe in words how much I was looking forward to this movie! Deathly Hallows is my favorite Harry Potter book, and Deathly Hallows: Part 1 is my favorite Harry Potter movie. All of the trailers and featurettes and early reviews made the movie sound absolutely amazing. I try usually not to let hype get my expectations up too much, but in this case I couldn't help it. I was fully expecting the series to go out with a bang
Let's start with my general, spoiler-free opinion. Were my high expectations met? Sadlyno. It was a big let-down, actually. It didn't feel like part of DH 1. It was more similar in tone to the Half-Blood Prince movie to me for some reason. It was too short and just felt chopped up. Like HBP, it seemed like a lot more was filmed, but then it was hacked in the editing room. And then I read that this was exactly the caseAll of the actors, practically, from the previous films are back- for mostly blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameos. The battle was lackluster and anticlimactic. At points it felt rushed, at other points too slow. A lot of the dialogue was changed and didn't feel right. The relationships were handled awkwardly. This is just my purist side, but a lot was changed from the book. I didn't think it would be that way, after Part 1. It really let me down.
Was it a terrible movie? By no means. The acting was good, the special effects were great (though I wouldn't pay the extra money for the 3D), and some of the scenes did hit the mark. I know I bashed it pretty hard up there, but, really, the majority of my complaints are based only on the changes from the book. I'm judging it not really for the movie it was but for the movie it could have been, the movie I wanted it to be. The hype definitely ruined things for me. I feel like I would have liked it better if I hadn't read the books. But then again, my brother, who has only seen the movies, was also let down. He was disappointed by the lack of a bit epic battle scene that he was expecting there to be.
And now, to put in some spoilers:
My main complaint is that the film was too rushed. It was the shortest in the series, yet it didn't need to be. This was the ending, so I feel like they could and should have taken all the time possible to make it perfect. A lot of the key points and characters from the book are in there, but for a split second! Hardly anything made much of an emotional impact on me because it was just BANG, move on to another scene without any time to digest anything. The moments that moved me the most were The Prince's Tale and The Forest Again, because they were slower pace. Like a lot of Part 1, they gave the scenes time to breathe so I could actually digest what was happening.
I was so disappointed with the lack of the side characters. They were all brought back and there was all this build-up in the beginning leading the audience to believe that they would be featured in some epic battle scenes. But they weren't! We saw a couple cool shots of them getting ready for the battle and a couple seconds of them fighting, but that was it. Lupin and Tonks had one nice moment reaching their hands out to each other, but that was it before we see their dead bodies. We never learned about their son, so when Harry mentions it in The Forest Again, instead of being an emotional moment, it's just a head-scratcher. The same goes for Fred Weasley. The twins have a nice but waaay too brief scene on the roof and Fred's only line in the movie is "yeah." I was so mad we didn't get the wonderfully written, abrupt, and tragic death scene in the book- or at least have him featured in the movie a bit more! Lavender Brown is clearly brutally killed, but it's never mentioned again. Hagrid is mysteriously absent during the whole movie until he suddenly shows up as the Death Eaters' hostage in the forest. How did he get captured? What was he doing the whole time?
My next big complaint also has to do with battling- namely, the handling of the Molly/Bellatrix and Harry/Voldemort duels. Where were the audiences during these scenes? Molly vs. Bellatrix is over in a second with no one watching. The intensity of the book scene is totally absent because it's over in a split second and it wasn't treated as as big of a deal. Mrs. Weasley just smiles in satisfaction to herself afterward, which I felt was totally out of character. Harry and Voldemort's duel, on the other hand is terribly drawn out to be made more "cinematic." I didn't really care to see them falling over the side of the castle or the Dragonball Z-esque drawn-out shot of their spells colliding. And then Voldemort just disintegrates once Neville kills the snake? Okay, I get that all his horcruxes are gone, but he still actually has to be killed! I never saw the spell actually hit him. And once again, like Molly and Bellatrix, no one is watching. And afterward- where's the reaction from everyone? They're all just chilling in the Great Hall waaay too casually. No cheers and whoops or sobbing and laughter? It was too toned down.
Ah, my expectations were just way too high for this. The wonderful book and Part 1 just got my hopes up so much. Part 1 was so faithful and let the story breathe. This didn't have the same feel for me and of course I was let down.