Thursday 18 November 2010

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1

So yesterday was a public holiday (selamat Aidiladha to those I didn’t already greet) and a day off for me. The night before I had thought about catching HP7, the latest installment in the Harry Potter series. Yesterday was the premiere for Malaysia, so there were bound to be lots of screens showing it. It being a public holiday made it more likely that seats would be difficult to find, as opposed to a normal premier mid-week. When I checked online through GSC's e-ticketing service, I managed to find single seats easily enough. So I was off to the movies!

Of course, this made some people just a tad jealous. I’m not exactly the biggest Harry Potter fan. Yes, I’ve read the books. Yes, I’ve watched the movies. Yes, I’m quite familiar with the lore. But no, I don’t remember all the little details. I don’t go crazy about the latest news in HP fandom. So here I was, hardly a hardcore fan, going alone to watch the new Harry Potter movie on opening day. :-)

And it was a thoroughly enjoyable movie. To channel Ron: “Brilliant!” ;-) The mood was perfectly captured, with mounting dread weighing on the scenery and the costumes and the characters’ bearings. I thought it was a story well-told, with good pacing and nothing seeming out of place. It’s been ages since I read the book, so I can’t comment on how accurately it portrayed scenes from the book (other than to note some obvious parts that were different of course). But the script and the director really captured the essence of the story.

One thing to really appreciate are the special effects, which are there to help in the story-telling, and not as something tacked on for wow-factor. That’s what separates the great movies from the B-movies.

Even if you’re not a Harry Potter fan, if you know of him, you owe it to yourself to watch this movie. It’s that good. And then, of course, you’ll wait a year for Part 2 to be released; just like the rest of us.

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