First Impressions...Harry Potter Deathly Hallows Pt 1

I have to say that I liked this series of novels as much as The Lord of the Rings.

What I mean by that is: I loved the first book, but could never get myself through the others...to the point where I just read the last chapter/few pages of the final book to see how it all ended.

Yeah, I'm that guy...

Mrs. Adorkification, on the other hand, reads voraciously, and never skips a page.

I'm not against the whole "Harry Potter" thing, it's just not my thing.

So I totally missed this film when it came to theaters, and my wife (who's read all the books) wanted to see the film version, so she put the thing in our Netflix cue and sat me down to watch it.

I knew going in that Part One was - in essence - the build up. The Empire to Part 2's Jedi if you will...

...but it was at least 30 minutes too long, and left me frustrated as all get out.

See, in Iron Man 3, Tony gets knocked down...repeatedly...and after the fall he works his way back up. He fights some bad guys, gets help from friends (new and old) and comes out better than he was at the beginning of the film.

It's a classic theme, but watching RDJ as Tony picking himself up carried the film.

In HP7 P1, Harry gets knocked down. Hermione gets knocked down. Ron gets knocked down. Everyone Harry knows from Hogwarts gets knocked down.

And we wait...and wait...and wait as the trio hide, sneak, regroup, recoup, learn some stuff, get betrayed, get captured, get rescued, run away, suffer loss, suffer more loss and bury their dead.

W...T...F...?

Even at their darkest moments, Empire had Artoo and Threepio, IM3 had Tony, Two Towers had the Battle at Helm's Deep.

They all had something to laugh at, laugh with, or cheer about despite being "the downer".

HP7 P1 had none of that. There was no sense of hope. No feeling of "yeah, things suck right now, but at least we've got or done this."

Why oh why couldn't just one of the baddies have been killed in this movie?

Again, I haven't read the books so I have no idea how far the film deviates, but I will say that I have even less desire to read the thing after seeing this movie.

As for Mrs. Adorkification, she loved it...crazy Harry Potter fans...