Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1




Theater Poster

 Less than three weeks after visiting Hogwarts, my wife and I were sitting in a theater watching Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 1. This seventh installment in the Harry Potter movie franchise did not disappoint us.

I am NOT the world’s biggest Harry Potter Fan. I have not read any of the books. I have seen all the movies however, some more than once. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy occupy the top spot on my list of all time fantasy favorites, followed by C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia and Frank Herbert’s Dune, all of which I have read. Even the Star War’s films and Star Trek in all its television and film permutations, excluding Enterprise, fall on my list before Harry Potter.

My wife, on the other hand, is a BIG fan. She has purchased most of the books the day they were released and finished reading them within a few days of their release. She knows the Harry Potter characters and story line much better than I do. Because she is such a Harry Potter fan, we have seen moist of the films on their day of their release.

We bought our tickets for the 7:00 PM show in advance over the internet. When we arrived at the theater, more than thirty minutes before the show, there was no line. My wife popped her credit card in the pre-sale kiosk and immediately our two tickets spit out.

By the time we rode two escalators to the third floor auditorium the doors had just opened and people were walking into the theater. We located two seats near the center front, two or three rows back. The seats were large, comfortable, and included cup holders at the end of the armrest.

After previews and commercials, the theater darkened, the sound came up, and the movie started around 7:15 PM.

During the film, the woman next to me gasped several times and almost jumped out her seat once. A man behind me audibly cursed at one of the characters and sighed a couple times when all seemed lost. The audience seemed engaged. When the credits started rolling, however, there was no applause as I have witnessed at other movies. I did not hear any audible comments, pro or con.

I enjoyed the movie and only a couple of times had to ask my wife about a character or place I was not sure about. She loved it and claimed that the film contained more of the book than the other films. Apparently, by dividing the book into two films, less of the book was cut out. The only thing she really missed was the internal monologue of the character’s thoughts provided by the book which the film does not try to recreate.

I am actually looking forward to the final installment because I am still not sure whether Severes Snape is a good guy or a bad guy.