HARRY POTTER & THE DEATHLY HALLOWS (Rated PG-13 for frightening images & sequences of intense action): The 7th (and first half) of the final installment of the beloved Harry Potter series begins with the whispered words, "These are dark times" Oh, that they are! After quite a mix from the earlier installments, this is beyond a doubt the darkest of all, taking us, not back to Hogwart school again, but to various parts of London and the English countryside, as our power trio of Harry, Ron & Hermione plunges headlong, driven as never before, with their wands as weapons now flashing professionally. They dash episodically hither & yon as they remind us of their immediate past while pointing us to their future, explaining their relationship with the Deathly Hallows and why the noseless Voldemort plans a crusade that will culminate with Harry's demise.
Whew, what a stretched-out exposition, leading, we can believe, to the bang-up whopper of a final half of the installment in July!
Instead of moving headlong toward that climactic episode, we're treated to exposition after exposition - visiting family graves, following a ghostly deer, Harry narrowly escaping death by drowning, a three brothers story, camping out in an ever changing tent, curiously morphing into odd humans as disguises to elude their nemesis - on & on, with the omnipresent angst reaching monstrous levels before the final credits cut us short.
Through all this we recognize that Harry remains the wizard world's best hope to defeat Voldemort and his team, but the trio must spend most of their time escaping recognition & confrontation by hieing into woods, mountains, & rocky peaks with the evil forces never far behind. A magic sword is found, Dumbledore's all-powerful wand is discovered, a shadowy demonstration of the Deathly Hallow is computer-animatedly performed, and director David Yates repeats the traditionally created whiz-bang sense of an other worldly world overlapping with a normal world, moved along by a still viable chemistry among actors Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson & Rupert Grint with the magnificent photography of Eduardo Serra, the richly effulgent music from Alexander Desplot & the kind of zippy editing we've come to expect from Mark Day - all combined for the ultimate pleasure in never-never land.
If anything dampens the enjoyment, it is the feeling that the time is not well spent; more like a drawn-out 2 1/2 hours of treading water while we wait anxiously for what's yet to follow. (Grade: B)
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