The Harry Potter series of books and movies has captured the hearts and imagination of millions of people, young and old; but has the Twilight series and other vampire movies taken some of its magic?
With an estimated box office take of $125 million dollars (domestic) over the weekend of 11/19-11/21, Potter gets the number one spot for pulling in the most money. (Which I never doubted that it wouldn’t)
I set my sights on having some sushi before the movie with a friend, and with full belly’s we caught the 8:20 p.m. showing of the movie at a local theater in DLP (digital light projection).
I had been waiting excitedly for this movie, and when I saw that the running time was 2 hours and 30 minutes, I thought, wow, this is short… Well, 30 minutes into the movie and I thought already that this was going to be a long night at the movies!
The movie started off strange/dark and slow, but 10 minutes in and we were back to the Potter action and fun that I came to expect and love about the movie series. But, that pretty much came to an abrupt halt, and by the time the movie came to its closing scene it felt as if I was in the theater for 4 hours! (kind of left me feeling the same way I did with the last Potter movie) Speaking of, they didn’t do what I thought was a very good job of bridging the death of Dumbledore in the last movie to this one.
I’m not saying that the movie was bad or boring, but the pace was pretty slow. Even with the three main characters played by Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, and Daniel Radcliffe, jumping from one place to another to avoid being detected or to escape the grips of their chasers, you’d think that it would make for an action packed film; not!
The magic that started the movie series seems to be missing, and although Potter and his friends have grown up, I always thought that the bases of magic was the belief of magic by youth, and their curious nature spirit.
This latest Potter movie seemed to me that the director, David Yates (or someone) wanted to make it too grown-up, and too much like a movie with a plot, making it somewhat hallow without the spark and magic of what preceded this movie.
One could easily get lost in translation from one scene to the next, and all the dream sequences that Potter was having. (I miss the magic, fun, and adventure!)
In the end though, you have to see the movie because you’ve already seen the others. And without seeing this one, there would be no sense in seeing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallow part II which is to be the final movie in the Potter series.
My 1 – 10 rating scale of this movie; 6