Meh,
pass:
The Christian Science Monitor said:
Successful storytelling rests on a few basic principles. One of them is this: A story is about someone who changes, who grows through a moral struggle. What is Harry's struggle? Exactly.
A story is about someone who changes. And, puberty aside, Harry doesn't change much. As envisioned by Rowling, he walks the path of good so unwaveringly that his final victory over Voldemort feels, not just inevitable, but hollow.
So, to recap: it's a four-hour movie in which the protagonist feels no inner conflict, has already won the affections of the modest, sorta-cute female version of his best friend, spouts cliches at the villain (who has absolutely no sense of humor), and finally defeats him... pretty much entirely because that villain chose to hold the wrong stick. No one's having a good time at all, no one seems to have even
heard of the concept of sex, heck, no one's even acting anything like being drunk, as Harry did in the best bits of film (but not, tellingly,
book) 6. Meanwhile, the screen time of the likes of Gambon, Rickman, Thewlis and Gleeson are at a series low, with Branagh and Oldman out of the picture entirely. And if you manage to stay conscious until the epilogue, well...
you might wish you hadn't. Meanwhile, there are no new locations, creatures or characters to speak of, just the ones you've already spent twelve hours watching, most of which have barely evolved themselves. There should be lots of rain, though; cinematic-rainiacs will surely be satisfied.
Sounds like a great two nights at the movies!
I find it a bit amusing how much of Part 2 they're putting in there
Part one's gonna flat-out blow. Heard it here first.
