Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 1

I went to the midnight showing of the first part of the Deathly Hallows last night... it was good. Actually is was close to great.

The dark mood of the last Potter book was very well captured as was the bleakness in the hearts of the characters. The set design, costuming, and slightly off sense of humor was all dead on. My only real issue was I thought some of the traveling scenes - Harry, Ron, and Hermione are searching for Horcruxes - were a bit drawn out. The strife is obvious enough without all the talking about it. But that is a small complaint when you take the movie as a whole.

So basically, the plot is that the Ministry of Magic has been overthrown by Voldemort and his Death Eaters. They are striking fear into the wizard world using many Nazi-like tactics and ideas like the purity of the blood. Before he died Dumbledore gave Harry the task of finding and destroying the remaining Horcruxes in order to defeat Voldemort.

This is a dark movie. There are quite a few deaths of beloved characters and it ends with sadness and the dark lord making much bigger strides than our heroes... just the way I like my continuing stories.

I'd give Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows an 8.5 out of 10. I was more impressed than I thought I would be. Very well done, I'm looking forward to Part 2.