How to end the most lucrative film franchise of all time? By stringing it out for as long as possible. Thus the final book in JK Rowling's ludicrously successful series has been turned into not one, but two instalments - a delight for Potter fans and a gift to the accountants at Warner Bros. 
 
 So Part I is the beginning of the end, and director David Yates sets out his stall early. "These are dark times, there is no denying," intones a doomy Bill Nighy in the opening scenes. The wizarding world has become a very dangerous place. 
 
 The plot sees Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Hermione (Emma Watson) and Ron (Rupert Grint) on the run from Lord Voldemort and his henchmen. They must sever ties with home - and Hogwarts - and go it alone. 
 
 Along the way, they embark on a quest to track down various things which will help them fight the evil forces - a horcrux containing a sliver of Voldemort's soul, the sword of Gryffindor, the meaning of a pendant that holds the key to the deathly hallows. Explanation of all this is provided for Potter novices, but a familiarity with the books is certainly an advantage. 
 
 Without doubt, this is the scariest Potter film so far. There are moments when even adult film-goers will be watching through their fingers - a scene in which Hermione is tortured, albeit heard rather than seen, another in which a Hogwarts teacher comes to a very unpleasant end. (And if you're scared of snakes, you might want to give this film a miss altogether.) 
 
 We also see a great deal of Voldemort, Harry's arch-nemesis, in a bone-chilling performance by Ralph Fiennes. Yates suffuses his film with a sense of dread that never dissipates. 
 
 But this is also the instalment that takes us deepest into the emotions of the central trio. When Harry visits the grave of his murdered mother and father, and Hermione casts a spell to remove all trace of herself from her parents' memories, they are scenes of real poignancy. 
 
 The most affecting scene did not figure in the book at all: Harry and Hermione dancing together in a tent to a crackling radio play of the Nick Cave track O Children. It manages to be sweet, funny and tear-jerking all at the same time. 
 
 We have watched these three growing up and their performances have never been better - particularly Grint, who gets the opportunity to do more than just play for laughs. His jealousy of the friendship between Harry and Hermione feels entirely real. 
 
 There are lighter moments too - we are introduced to the inner workings of the Ministry of Magic, where entry is gained by flushing oneself down a public lavatory. As always, it's the little details that delight: the self-filling champagne flutes at Fleur's wedding, Dumbledore's last will and testament unscrolling itself in mid-air. 
 
 The set-pieces are terrific, from the sight of seven Harry Potters in the same shot to a mid-air chase sequence in a motorcycle and sidecar that manages to detour through the Dartford Tunnel. 
 
 Returning cast members Julie Walters, Imelda Staunton and Jason Isaacs give brief but effective turns, and Nighy is a welcome addition as Rufus Scrimgeour, the curiously accented Minister of Magic. 
 
 Yates' only misstep is his focus on the trio's camping trip in the wilderness. This part of the film goes on for too long, and the shots of Harry looking pensive against a variety of admittedly stunning backdrops look more like a Visit Britain advert than the adventures of the world's most famous wizard. 
 
 Even at a running time of just under two-and-a-half hours, it feels as if Yates is cramming in as much as he possibly can. Can Part II be better than this? You'll have to wait until July to find out. But it'll be no mean feat. 
 
 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part I: Seven Magazine review, by Jenny McCartney 
 
 Seven rating: * * * * 
 
 As the Harry Potter franchise has moved towards its inevitable conclusion, so the films have shifted farther away from the childish audience that once thrilled to the cosy sorcery of Harry and his pals at Hogwarts. 
 
 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, the penultimate film in the series, is best suited to older children: if you put a five year-old anywhere near it, you would be guaranteed a month’s screaming meltdown at bedtime. 
 
 On reflection, I’m not entirely sure that doesn’t apply to adults, too. In this film, England is a menacing and cold-hearted place with powerful echoes of Nazi Germany, as the evil Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) and his cohorts wheel out repressive measures against 'Muggles’ (non-magic folk, for readers who don’t speak Potter) and 'half-bloods’ (a mixture of magic and Muggle). 
 
 When Voldemort seizes control of the government, Harry’s face is plastered on 'wanted’ posters: once caught, he’ll be killed. Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Hermione (Emma Watson) and Ron (Rupert Grint) must dodge capture while simultaneously finding and destroying the 'Horcruxes’: the scattered objects that enable Voldemort to remain immortal. 
 
 But atmosphere, not plot detail, is the point here. Since The Deathly Hallows is being split into two films, there’s no sense of rushing headlong towards an explosive finale; better dawdling to explore sub-plots, complicated feelings and the creeping chill of things never being quite as they seem. 
 
 It all makes for a different style of Potter film, in which the gothic, comic grandeur of Hogwarts doesn’t feature at all, and the Harry-Ron-Hermione trio spend much time shivering in frozen forests and by icy lakes, almost in a state of suspended anticipation, hoping not to be found by Voldemort’s dreaded 'Searchers’. 
 
 Age has complicated their relationships: at one point, Ron storms off, jealous of what he perceives as the closeness between Harry and Hermione – and a subsequent tender dance scene between Watson and Radcliffe is ambiguous enough to hint that Ron might have indeed picked up on a trace of suppressed attraction between them. 
 
 With Radcliffe, in particular, what sometimes appeared as a kind of blank perkiness in the earlier films has matured into a more profound sense of stoicism: the older Harry is in closer touch with his feelings and his fears. 
 
 The stretching-out of the storytelling allows for lingering in some gorgeously surreal pieces of cinema which transcend even the expectations of the Potter genre: at one point, the three friends use a spell to inhabit the middle-aged bodies of Ministry workers and enter the corridors to Voldemort’s administrative heart of darkness, never knowing when their disguises will crumble. 
 
 For pure visual ingenuity and dramatic tension, I would take that scene above much that’s noisily acclaimed as spectacular fare for adults, such as Christopher Nolan’s dreary dreamscapes in Inception. 
 
 The set, as ever, is a richly mouldering, eccentric delight, and the cinematographer Eduardo Serra uses a haunting grey and grainy palette to echo the darkness dominant in the land. David Yates, the director, has created a curiously effective film: structurally patchy yet so consistently inventive that it rarely grows tedious. 
 
 Above all, it succeeds in whetting the appetite for the almighty battle between good and evil that’s certain to roar through Part 2. ||||| Funeral wreaths at the ready, for Harry Potter is bowing out. The record-breaking film series, adapted with a stentorian reverence from the JK Rowling bestsellers, totters towards the exit door at the end of a nine-year, seven-picture marathon, as its total running time nudges 20 hours and its inhabitants age before our eyes. 
 
 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 Production year: 2010 Countries: Rest of the world, UK Cert (UK): 12A Runtime: 146 mins Directors: David Yates Cast: Alan Rickman, Dame Maggie Smith, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Helena Bonham Carter, Jason Isaacs, Michael Gambon, Ralph Fiennes, Rupert Grint, Tom Felton More on this film 
 
 It's going, going, almost gone, and yet its long goodbye comes in two separate instalments: a prolonged death rattle that begins with tonight's London premiere of part one, and won't conclude until the release of part two in July 2011. Only then can the wake begin. 
 
 "How can they tell?" quipped Dorothy Parker when told of the death of Calvin Coolidge, and it's tempting to ask a similar question about this, the boy wizard's last hurrah. It's not so much that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows feels at times largely indistinguishable from the six outings preceding it, nor even that part one offers so little in the way of resolution(part two will surely take care of that). It's simply that it's hard to mourn the demise of a franchise that was never more than half-alive to begin with. 
 
 Does it move; does it breathe? Were it not for the fact that the world has watched Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint grow up on screen, we might as well have spent the past decade locked up inside a waxwork museum.Part one sees Harry (Radcliffe) attempting to variously evade and defeat the dark lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes): the same mission as it ever was. The big difference this time around is that Hogwarts is now a memory and the school's absence forces our three young castaways to pursue their quest against a Wagnerian backdrop of damp forests and windswept coastlines. 
 
 This, it transpires, proves too onerous a task for Ron (Grint), who wimps out for a time and leaves Harry and Hermione (Watson) to go it alone. They cling to each other for comfort as the sexual tension sparks and gutters between them, much as it did for Frodo and Sam on the road to Mordor. Sometimes an illuminated deer will trot over to show them something important. 
 
 On other occasions, Hermione will pluck an arcane connection from some forgotten bit of wizarding lore, prompting Harry to widen his eyes and claim that she's brilliant. In this way the plot shunts ever onward in search of closure. 
 
 Deathly Hallows looks great, in the way that a show home looks great. Director David Yates has arranged the furniture to perfection. He has laid on the fireworks (I particularly liked The Tale of the Three Brothers, rendered as a shadow-play) and filled the interior with a rich array of celebrity guests, so that the likes of Bill Nighy, Rhys Ifans, Imelda Staunton and Helena Bonham Carter flit between the scenes with the satisfied air of jobbing actors who have been offered walk on roles at the world's most expensive fancy dress ball. 
 
 Elsewhere, purists may like to note that Ron gets to perform his signature move of scuttling backwards on his hands and heels while simultaneously gawping at some off-screen monster. Practice, after all, makes perfect and he's been doing this a while. 
 
 How will it end and what comes next? There's no doubt the Potter spin-offs have been a reliable cash dispenser for Warner Bros, and no denying that they are deeply loved by the legions of fans that flock to see them. What remains to be seen is how they fare once the final credits roll; how they will stand up 10, 20 or 30 years down the line. Try as I might, I can't shake the suspicion that these films are too obviously built for purpose and too lacking in wit, warmth and humanity to survive much beyond the moment. 
 
 So farewell Harry Potter, the literary marvel who became a closed book at the movies. You endured and you prospered. You took up space and leave no trace. After all this time and all these films, it is as though we never really knew you at all.
– American audiences have to wait another week, but the second-last installment of the Harry Potter movies premiered in London tonight. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I sets up the grand finale, which isn't out until July 2011. Not that reviews will mean a whit to devoted fans, but two early ones out of Britain are of the love-it/hate it variety: It's the "scariest" Potter film by far, writes Anita Singh in the Telegraph. "This is also the installment that takes us deepest into the emotions of the central trio" and includes "scenes of real poignancy." Details like self-filling champagne flutes are a "delight" as usual, and the special effects are "terrific." She can't wait for next July. Xan Brooks in the Guardian is not a fan. Yeah, "it looks great, in the way that a show home looks great," he writes. But it lacks soul. "It's not so much that (it) feels at times largely indistinguishable from the six outings preceding it, nor even that part one offers so little in the way of resolution. It's simply that it's hard to mourn the demise of a franchise that was never more than half-alive to begin with." The Potter films won't stand the test of time because they "are too obviously built for purpose and too lacking in wit, warmth and humanity to survive much beyond the moment."