the ride." Roger Ebert awarded the first part three out of four stars, praising the cast and calling it "a handsome and sometimes harrowing film . . . completely unintelligible for anyone coming to the series for the first time". Scott Bowles of USA Today called it, "Menacing and meditative, Hallows is arguably the best instalment of the planned eight-film franchise, though audiences who haven't kept up with previous chapters will be hopelessly lost", while Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly likewise praised the film as "the most cinematically rewarding chapter yet." In a review for the Orlando Sentinel, Roger Moore proclaimed Part I as "Alternately funny and touching, it's the best film in the series, an Empire Strikes Back for these wizards and their wizarding world. And those effects? They're so special you don't notice them." Ramin Setoodeh of Newsweek gave a negative review, writing, "They've taken one of the most enchanting series in contemporary fiction and sucked out all the magic . . . while Rowling's stories are endlessly inventive, Potter onscreen just gives you a headache." Lou Lumenick of The New York Post found the film to be "Beautifully shot but a soulless cash machine... [that] delivers no dramatic payoff, no resolution and not much fun." Keith Uhlich of Time Out New York named Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 the seventh-best film of 2010, calling it an "elatingly downbeat blockbuster". Accolades Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 was nominated for Best Art Direction and Best Visual Effects at the 83rd Academy Awards. It is the second film in the Harry Potter film series to be nominated for a Visual Effects Oscar (the previous one being Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban). The film was long-listed for eight different categories, including Best Cinematography, Production Design, and Original Score, at the 64th BAFTA awards, and ultimately was nominated for Best Special Visual Effects and Make-up. See also List of films split into multiple parts References External links 2010 fantasy films 2010s fantasy adventure films 2010s road movies American fantasy adventure films American sequel films British fantasy adventure films British sequel films Children's fantasy films Films about coups d'état Films about totalitarianism Films directed by David Yates Films produced by David Barron Films produced by David Heyman Films produced by J. K. Rowling Films scored by Alexandre Desplat Films set in 1997 Films