We joined the masses and saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 on Friday night. I admit that I'm not a huge Harry Potter fan. I've never read the books and have only reluctantly seen the prior movies (out of sequence). I can see their appeal and have enjoyed some of the movies, but haven't really followed the overall character arcs or story. Besides a vaguely recollection that the headmaster wizard died, I don't remember any specifics of the prior Potter movie.
Deathly Hallows is definitely not a stand alone movie. It reminded me of a TV series grand finale the way it brought back characters from prior movies. For a seventh movie, it's unfair to consider a movie outside of its franchise. But even within the franchise, Deathly Hallows is one of the weaker Potter movies. It's only been two days since seeing it, but I can't recall anything that stands out as particularly interesting -- which is sad impression for a fantasy movie to have.
What I mainly recall was how the magic premise didn't make sense to me and sounded more like Star Trek techno-babble. The magic in this movie is much less awe-inspiring. For example, the magic wands became mere handguns leading to mundane action movie shootouts. I guess for the first part of the finale, they really didn't need to introduce the magic, but it seems this movie was far less magical and more about wrapping-up loose ends and building-up to the series' end.
