Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1

"These are dark times," is the opening line of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1, the first part of the last tale in the worldwide phenomenon. The words are spoken by Bill Nighy, and he isn't kidding. This is unrelentingly grim and joyless, and requires a glossary of Harry Potter terms and characters to keep up.

The melancholy tone is struck early, when the three heroes of the film all go into hiding. Hermione (Emma Watson), goes so far as to magically remove herself from the memory of her parents. Harry's horrible aunt and uncle, usually mocked, are shown packing up and leaving their home.

The reason: Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) is almost fully restored to power, and he's after them. He has highly-placed spies in the government, and soon the whole place has the look of the set of "Springtime for Hitler" (the parallels to Nazism, with the discussion of "pure-bloods," seem cheap and obvious). Harry, Hermione, and Ron are searching for horcruxes--pieces of Voldemort's soul--so they can destroy them and thus him. Voldemort, in addition to trying to kill Harry, is after one of the title objects--an all-powerful wand (incidentally, let me go into copy-editor mode to point out that in my dictionary, "hallow" is only a verb, not a noun).

Amidst all this searching, the kids bounce from one wintry U.K. location to the next, looking haggard and getting on each other's nerves (Ron understandably has had enough of being the sidekick). The film has no scenes at Hogwarts, thus no teachers (aside from a lamentably brief appearance by Alan Rickman as Snape), no quidditch, no moving paintings. I appreciate what the author, J.K. Rowling, was trying to do--childhood ends, and adulthood can suck. But I'm not sure it makes for good cinema, except for those who have read the books and know the arcana.

And there's a lot of arcana. I read the first four books, and have seen all the films (but only once each), and I struggled to keep up. It took me a while to remember what a "mudblood" is: a wizard born from Muggle parents--if you don't know what a Muggle is, you have no hope. I couldn't keep the Death-Eaters straight from the Snatches, and then, at the end, I was surprised to see John Hurt show up. Who was he supposed to be? My mind went back and ran through all the British character actors who have been in these films--was he one of them? Once home I checked and yes, he was in the first film, but how was I supposed to remember that? That was almost ten years ago.

I stopped seeing these films in theaters after the fourth one because they were groaning under the weight of detail. Last year I saw the two I had missed on DVD, but enjoyed Half-Blood Prince so much that I was stoked for this one. But I was disappointed. I felt excluded, as if it were the Harry Potter Fan Club, and outsiders could just fend for themselves. But above all, this film is just no fun.

My grade for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1: C-.