4/5 Stars

Let’s just be honest here: You’ve already made up your mind when it comes to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1. This is not a matter of the quality of the stories or the mystery of the series. Your opinion of any one installment comes down to your predisposition to the Potter universe, and you either like the franchise or you don’t.

I am a Harry Potter fan, and I have been since I read J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone when I was 11. I’ve read all the books, and I’ve seen all the films. I waited in the line outside of Harkins Flagstaff 11 for 12 rather cold, rather miserable hours to see the latest entry. Accordingly, I like me some HP, and I liked me some Deathly Hallows: Part 1.

At the start of Deathly Hallows, our heroes have had a long road to this point, and the journey ahead seems more daunting than ever before. Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) moves his family away from Number 4, Privet Drive, as the childhood home of “The Boy Who Lived” will be an obvious target for Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes). Hermione (Emma Watson) uses magic to erase all memory and evidence of her existence in her home to protect her parents. Soon the two join Ron (Rupert Grint), and they transport Harry to The Burrow, the mystically protected home of the Weasley family.

In the space between the film’s opening and Harry’s arrival at The Burrow, three characters in the series have died, and one has been rather seriously wounded. When Harry, Ron and Hermione set out on their exotic camping trip to find the remaining Horcruxes (fragmented pieces of Voldemort’s soul), things don’t get much safer, and more fan-favorites find themselves on the hit list.

We realize we have grown up with Harry and Co., and now is the time to deal with death, betrayal, deceit, jealousy and, yes, even sex. The stakes in the world of grown-ups are often high, and any misstep could mean the end of something at any moment.

But then again, this is the nature of the film itself, as fans will “avada kedavra” anybody who screws up the story at this point. Fortunately, fans can keep their wands safely in their pockets. Director David Yates, who started on a somewhat lower note with the fifth installment, has grown exponentially as a filmmaker, and he is able to wield and translate the material with more ease than ever before.

Similarly, Radcliffe, Watson and Grint are phenomenal. Warner Bros. got rather lucky, considering they casted their leads a decade ago, and none of them managed to a) die, b) develop substance abuse problems, and/or c) utterly suck as performers. The three leads, on whose backs rests a substantial portion of the narrative, have grown into the fine actors needed to play against the rest of the award-winning cast — which includes (but is not limited to) Fiennes, Helena Bonham Carter, Robbie Coltrane, Rhys Ifans, Imelda Staunton and Alan (Hans motherflippin’ Gruber) Rickman. It’s a daunting task, but these three steal, run with and eventually carry the show.

I’ve heard some people say the latest film is the best entry since Alfonzo Cuaron’s Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, but I don’t think that’s accurate — not yet, anyway. In terms of atmosphere and performance, this is a spectacular picture. However, this is an incomplete film, and the ending will only make you pine for the finale. Only when we’ve seen the second half can we go about the arbitrary task of picking “the best Harry Potter movie.” But for being only half of a movie, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 is a good film, and it will certainly wet any fan’s appetite for the final showdown.