I review "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows part 1" pt2

            Alright on the move again, maybe we're done with the camping long enough for something poignant to happen.

            Another nitpick there are a lot of wasted scenes in this movie.  Like the train scene.  A guy who looks like General Zod is standing on the tracks and stops the express to Hogwarts to inspect the train... Why is Neville on that train?  He is a known associate and collaborator who participated in Dumbledore's Army, shouldn't he have been on some sort of hit list?  You know, a list you hand to Bellatrix so she can entertain herself playing with entrails and not kill minions for shits and giggles.  What is more, why are they stopping the train at all?  Can't they just wait at Hogwarts?  The place is run by Snape now, you could hang out, have some tea, rather than flying to the middle of the countryside to stop a train that only has two stops.  Both of which you know and can be at.

KNEEL!  Before ZOD!

Also, not to harp too much on this, but this is the original image, dark and colorless and nearly imperceptible as anything other than a mess of shadows.

            Or here is another wasted scene, when Harry, Ron, and Hermione enter that hidden apartment that unfolds from the surrounding structure, its very dusty and unused, even though they were there like two movies ago and it seems like an obvious headquarters for the good guys to use.  When they enter that apartment a wisp of dust takes the form of a wrathful ghost of Dumbledore and charges the three and then vanishes... In the theater I said loud enough to be shushed, "The fuck was that?", and then Ron immediately says, "What was that all about?" and I laughed my ass off.  When the characters don't know why a random, never to be mentioned again scene is there, time to cut some fluff.

So this is here to scare off the local riff-raff who might break into the apartment?  The magically concealed apartment.

            Why is there a wedding in this movie?  The plot isn't crowded enough that we have to throw this random set piece in from the book?  If you want to show the growing strain between trying to live a happy life while in a shadow war there are ways to do it, like in the last movie when they burned down the Weasly's home, which was awesome... Funny how that house looks right as rain without mention of how they repaired it.  In fact that would have been a better illustration of the tension, trying to rebuild a home, which had been burned down by lunatics.  Really the wedding isn't the only unnecessary part, but showing Ron's eldest brother and his wife was pointless, they disappear quickly, existing solely to have a wedding, solely to set up the plot.  Why couldn't they have been married off screen?

Because if there is one thing that says, "sure to be exciting" is being a guest at your friend's brother's wedding.  Also, this image has been color enriched so it isn't a blob of darkness.

            Hey, why is the Prime Minister talking to three high schoolers about a high school principle's will?  Couldn't this part of the plot been handed off to Lupin or better yet Luna's father, giving him an actual reason to be there in the first act instead of just dropping him in cryptically, practically with a sign around his neck that says, 'Foreshadowing' (actually he was wearing his Deathly Hollows medallion if I remember correctly, so he was literally wearing a sign that said foreshadowing around his neck).

I'm so glad we got to spend 30 seconds with this guy so we could really feel for him when his betrayal came, as opposed to it feeling like a rushed and anti-climactic sub-plot swept aside for more camping scenes.

            Speaking of the Deathly Hollows, this series doesn't have enough MacGuffins and Dues Ex Machina flying around that we had to throw in 2 more (I say two because the cloak was in an earlier film and is thus an established device).  Isn't it funny how a stone that brings back the dead wasn't mentioned when Dumbledore died, or how no one mentioned or thought twice about burying Dumbledore with the most powerful magical item on the planet?  Little irresponsible to leave that WMD sitting in an unguarded crypt when a terrorist is running around looking for weapons he can easily get his hands on.  Its like storing a nuke at the Gettysburg memorial with no guard.

"Hey, you think we should even bother to put one of those Dumbledore ghosts that are made out of dust so as to scare off grave robbers?"  "No, you kidding.  Let's use the same security my paper boy uses: put a big rock on top of the thing."

            So Lord V has taken over the ministry in a bloody coup... Nobody going to say or do anything about that?  Just gonna go on about your business?  People have to know what is going on, they create a secret police for dragging people off to mock trials and they change who is in charge of Hogwarts... To the guy who murdered the last headmaster.  Nobody has any objection to what is happening, which I could buy if Lord V wasn't a literal monster and instead a nice guy who had a point, but he has no point.  Lord V wants to cleanse the wizard community of those who had muggle parents, I was under the impression that he had a muggle parent?  So, why isn't anyone confronting him about this?  How is he able to just take control without other groups opposing him?  Where are all the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff members of this society who think it might be a good idea to keep their own liberty?  Where are the Slytherin members who don't want Lord V in control, are Snape and Black the only two?  Bleh...

            MacGuffin, MacGuffin, who's got the MacGuffin?  Sword?  Anybody got the magical sword?  How about the medallion that drives you paranoid?  I dislike immensely that much of what needs to happen falls on items that have not been identified or explained until this late in the game, it screams of being out of ideas and pulling stuff out an orifice.  Why did Ron have a vision of Harry and Hermione fucking when he opened the Horcrux?  If Harry knew he could open the locket by speaking in snake tongue why did they pointlessly blast the thing with their wands when they first got it... HOW DID THEY HAPPEN TO FIND THAT SWORD?  Bad, bad plotting.

This happens.  It isn't subtle.  And it makes no sense. Because if you are trying to get somebody not to destroy you, showing them a picture of a guy doing his girlfriend is only gonna piss him off.

See?  And he's got the MacGuffin Sword cocked any ready to rock.

            And... They're camping again.  Urgh.... Fine, while they have a random dancing scene I'll contemplate what my next blog will consist of.

Make me a sandwich.