Harry Potter.

[crinkledpaper]

I saw it midnight on Thursday, so here's a spoilery review.

What I loved:

• The music. Good God, the music.
  
• McGonagall. She was fantastic, coming to Harry's defense (my theater exploded) and then her adorable "I've always wanted to do that!" just killed the theater. And then I read an article that Maggie Smith had shingles while filming the movie, and it was on her head - where her wig was in constant contact. She refused to not film b/c she wanted to make the movie perfect. Love that woman.
  
• Ron's "Frankie First Year" line.
  
• "NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!" Of course.
  
• When the dragon broke through the top of Gringotts, I loved loved LOVED how they had him pause and just take a deep breath of free air. It was a tiny moment, but it added so much emotion to the escape.
  
• Helena as Hermione as Bellatrix. Amazing. I wish they had had Helena's voice though, but I get why they kept the original voices.
  
• Neville, blowing up Hogwarts' bridge and then being a general badass. Also, Matt Lewis - congratulations on your face.
  
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• Even if I didn't like the changes, the battle at Hogwarts was visually stunning. And all of the emotions building up to it were just perfect.
  
• Rupert's reaction to Fred cemented his place as the best actor in the trio. More about that later though.
  
• I really loved Narcissa in the film. I always liked her in the books, but I think Helen McCrory did a great job playing a mother who just loves her son.

What I was okay with:

• How the Ron/Hermione kiss came about. Since they eliminated S.P.E.W., I knew the emotion behind the kiss wouldn't be the same. But considering they spent the first four movies shipping Harry/Hermione, I was surprised at how well they made it seem like a "FINALLY" moment. And really, most of the emotion in building up the relationship came from Rupert.
  
• Using the boathouse instead of the Shrieking Shack. The glass just made it so much more creepy.
  
• This is more my fault, but in one of Harry and Voldemort's confrontations, Voldemort's coat separates and starts grabbing Harry and picking him up. And in what was a tense moment, I started laughing. Because all I could think of was how much it looked like tentacle porn. I got such looks in the theater. You're welcome for ruining that btw.
  
• Neville/Luna.

What I hated:

• This is a common theme in all of the movies but GODDAMMIT THEY RUINED RON. If I hadn't read the books, I would have had such a hard time believing Harry and Ron were anything more than friendly classmates. I know it's the Trio, but I always had Harry and Ron closer than Harry and Hermione and Ron and Hermione. It really started in HBP when Ron was just sitting in the background while Hermione and Harry talked. But like, Harry was going to go die and Ron just stood in the background. He didn't really look all that sad, either. None of it is Rupert's fault, though. I think Rupert did an amazing job with what they gave him.
  
• Ginny and Harry's ridiculous kiss, which was clearly thrown in to remind us that they have a thing going on. Because it's incredibly easy to forget. Because there is no chemistry there.
  
• The deaths of Fred, Lupin, and Tonks. They barely even showed you that it was Fred lying on the floor (my mom only knew it was a Weasley b/c of Ron's reaction). The death that hurt the most in the books was barely felt. And then with Lupin and Tonks, the real horror of their deaths (the fact that they left an infant behind) was taken away because Tonks' pregnancy was only hinted at in Part 1. Ugh.
  
• Even though I admired Alan Rickman's performance...the actual memory was horrible. First, child!Lily had fucking brown eyes (seriously, no one caught that?). The Snape in the movies is not even close to the one in the books. I remember how creepy his love for Lily was, even if its beginning was understandable. In the movie, it looked adorable. And then their explanation of what Snape did for Harry was incredibly confusing. I had to explain to the non-book readers with me what had happened.
  
• Tiny but - I am so angry they didn't even drop in a "Huh, I wonder if my dad's old invisibility cloak is one of the Deathly Hallows?" I loved how Harry became the Master of Death in the books. Not having it in the movies kind of took some of the significance away for me.
  
• The train station. It was cheesy in the books, it was worse in the movies.
  
• Ginny being the only one to show any real emotion at Harry being 'dead' besides Hagrid.
  
• Speaking of Hagrid, I hated how they didn't explain where he was until he was just randomly in the forest with the Death Eaters.
  
• How anticlimatic Voldemort's death was. I was like "...oh, that's it?"
  
• I already disliked the epilogue, but I wish we had had at least a glance of some of the other characters. Hearing Harry say "Albus Severus Potter" outloud was so cringe-worthy.

After typing that out, I realized I disliked the movie more than I remembered. And I'm sure I'm forgetting things. But that's because I was distracted.

My experience at the theater though...I got there at 9:30 because one of my friends seeing Transformers at 8 told me there were tons of people there already. My showing was at 12:10, so we were in a separate line than the 12:01 line (which was crazy long, wow) and we could easily see our theater from the line. The 3D showings were on the other side and the line was sooo tiny compared to ours. So around 11, they started letting the 12:01 line in. About half-way through, people started to go into our theater. My line was like FUCK THAT! and the people ripping tickets were like "lol no1kara" until we got a manager to stop it and let us essentially rush the door to the theater. So ridiculous.

Once in there, I realized that the place was crawling with kids from my high school, but none that were actually in my graduating class, just younger ones. A few of them still treated me like a cool senior they wanted to impress, it was kind of adorable. But one kid, Garrett, took it a bit too far. He sat behind me and we talked until the previews started.

About 20 minutes into the movie, I felt something in my hair and was like 'omg is something in there' and was preoccupied most of the movie because of it. He IMed me last night and was saying how good it was to see me and he asked me how I liked the movie. So I told him I was distracted b/c I felt my hair moving and stuff.
He admits that it was him.

My hair looked so nice, so he decided to lightly stroke it. He thought it was light enough that I wouldn't notice.

Cue freaking out and blocking him.

Sob. Why are people so creepy.