I saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows at a midnight showing last night (this morning) with a friend of mine. I'm not so into Harry Potter that I'd normally be a candidate for a midnight showing of this series, but I'd got through teaching at 10 PM, and I'm normally wired afterwards, so I agreed to go. This morning, another friend of mine asked me on Facebook what I thought of the movie. What is below is a slightly modified adaption of what I wrote this morning.

I was struck while watching the movie how very different it "felt" from earlier movies. I don't mean that as a criticism, and I don't believe it's different just because the characters/actors are older. This installment not only had a very different tone and setting(s) from the previous movies in the series, it also had a very distinct directing style that was different from all the previous movies. I can't remember if a handcam has ever been used in any of these movies before, but if so, it's never been used as much. It was fairly pervasive in the outdoor scenes. Along the lines of all this, it's undeniable that the style of this movie has been influenced by the Twilight films. Parts of the movie very much felt like a Twilight movie.

The Harry Potter movies, like the books (which I stopped reading after the second or third installment), have always grown increasingly darker, but obviously, this movie was the darkest of all. Early movies always had a certain element of whimsy, but there was very little of that this times around. A couple of scenes were quite scary to me, even as an adult. And knowing how popular the books and movies are with children, I'd wonder about the wisdom of letting a child see this movie, regardless of his or her level of maturity.

Splitting the last book into two parts clearly had some element of profit involved, but at the same time, fans have often complained that too much from the books is left out in the movies, so I'm certain that many fans will be quite happy for events to slow down. How close the movie stayed with the book, I have no idea, but the film definitely seemed to feel less rushed than previous installments. Although the ongoing camping scenes became a bit tedious after a while, it was difficult to follow how much time had elapsed at various points until someone would mention that "months" had passed by since some previous event.

I think I may actually have an ear infection at the moment in my right ear, so it may have been my own hearing, but many of the British accents were so thick, especially in some of the early conversations, that I had great trouble keeping up with dialogue in some places. I don't know if that was just me or not. I felt like I'd be too much of an old man to constantly ask my friend, "What'd he say?" so I just figured I'd see it again with Kathy later.

Overall, my feelings toward the movie are positive, but 20 minutes in, I wished I'd seen the previous movie again before this one. For those who aren't strong Harry Potter devottees, I'd recommend reviewing at least the sixth installment before this one. I should have.