My Top 30 Films of 2011: 30-21

End of year list season is well and truly upon us. 2011 has long felt like a weak year for the movies, with a few notable exceptions. So much so that I was originally thinking of abandoning last year's "top 30" template for a more conventional, not to mention streamline, "top 10". Yet looking back over the last twelve months I was delighted to discover there were at least 30 films I liked, probably about 20 of which are unambiguously terrific. Maybe the year hasn't been so bad after all.

I was going to wait until I'd seen the much talked about 'Margaret', Nanni Moretti's 'We Have a Pope' and Fincher's take on 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo' before compiling this list, but for a range of reasons I'm going to kick off now. For one thing, 'Dragon Tattoo' is based on source material I have a serious problem with - already adapted into three Swedish films that I despised - whilst there is no guarantee I'll get the opportunity to see the other two before the month is out.

It's worth noting before I begin that this list is comprised of films I've seen this year, including festival movies - some of which aren't on general release in the UK until next year. If you're wondering why some of this year's most stunning releases aren't included, such as 'Black Swan' and '13 Assassins' (both seen in Venice last year), that's because they were in 2010's list. So here are my choices, my favourite films of 2011 numbers 30-21:

30) The Green Hornet, dir Michel Gondry, USA

What I said: "Rogen's hero isn't charming and erudite - he is an obnoxious oaf and by and large stays that way right the way through the film. Rogen's delivery - of dialogue he penned with writing partner Evan Goldberg - is superb too, in all its underplayed, mock-macho brainlessness and the relationship between him and Jay Chou, who plays sidekick Kato, is fun to watch."



By no means perfect, it's fair to say that Michel Gondry's 'The Green Hornet' benefited from extremely low expectations when I saw it back in January. A poor trailer, troubled production history and use of much-derided post-converted 3D suggested this would be a creative misstep for all involved - and a potential career-wrecker for writer/star Seth Rogen. Yet - at the box office - the film outperformed the studio's own modest expectations owing to the fact that it's a lot better than we had any right to expect. This comes down to a combination of the brilliant Christoph Waltz as the villain, Rogen's incredulous, hyper-enthusiastic style of delivery which injects humour into every line and, most of all, the director's knack for innovation and imagination.

There are a lot of pretty cool in-camera effects in 'The Green Hornet' and, though Gondry's more personal documentary 'The Thorn in the Heart' (released around the same time) would be the more respectable choice for this list, here is a film very much in the same spirit as 'Be Kind Rewind' and 'The Science of Sleep', if not his superior Charlie Kaufman-penned work. That the action scenes are also quite effective - in what's basically a quirky comedy about a rich douchebag learning to become a marginally smaller rich douchebag - only adds to the pleasantness of the surprise.

29) Winnie the Pooh, dir Stephen J. Anderson & Don Hall, USA

What I said: "As you might expect from a gentle children's tale, this film is very much aimed at youngsters... there are no nods to the adults or in-jokes at all. But it's nice to find a modern animation totally free of any post-modern winking and there is fun to be had here for adults so long as they are prepared to indulge their innermost child. As the credits rolled I found myself identifying with the sentiment of this bittersweet passage from [A.A] Milne's The House at Pooh Corner: "And by and by Christopher Robin came to an end of things, and he was silent, and he sat there, looking out over the world, just wishing it wouldn't stop.""



Let down only by a bafflingly short running length (is 63 minutes technically even a feature film?), Disney's "51st Animated Classic" is as charming as it is beautifully animated. The best of the studio's 90s animating talent returned to work on the picture and a lot of love has gone into the detailed and fluid hand-drawn animation, as well as the faithful voice-acting and delightfully hummable ditties. There isn't much of a story as Pooh, Piglet and company bumble their way through the Hundred Acre Wood, but it hardly matters if you approach it in the intended spirit of open-hearted whimsy. This is potentially only a film for toddlers and animation enthusiasts, but I found it to be one of the year's unqualified pleasures.

28) Contagion, dir Steven Soderbergh, USA

What I said: "It feels slightly too long and, in terms of narrative focus, it's every bit as scattershot as its director's filmography - with some characters unceremoniously forgotten, whilst others reappear just as you've forgotten they were in the film to begin with. Yet it's gripping, frightening, filled with haunting images and, I suspect, it will come to be seen as the definitive film about worldwide medical crisis... It certainly left me wanting to stockpile supplies and seal the exits, too frightened to touch my own face. And that's the sign of a good film."



I love a good doomsday scenario movie and they don't come more frighteningly credible than Soderbergh's 'Contagion', which shows how a new virus could significantly reduce the global population within months of killing Gwyneth Paltrow. After Mrs. Coldplay bites it in the opening moments, we know that nobody in the film's stellar ensemble (Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Matt Damon, Marion Cotillard and more) is safe, increasing the sense of dread. It's a bit jargon-heavy, filled with clumsy exposition and a little unfocussed, but it's also one of the most memorable and visceral movie-going experiences of the year.

27) Limitless, dir Neil Burger, USA

What I said: "Limitless is a well executed and intelligent thriller which suggests, when the cinema going public finally succumb to that long-overdue Zach Galifianakis overdose, Bradley Cooper will be the Hangover actor left standing. It’s also evident that Burger is a capable hand for exciting, character-based movies. It’s patient, cerebral and unpretentious pulp science fiction fare on a sensible scale."



In 'Limitless' Bradley Cooper's serial underachiever - a deadbeat wannabe writer - gets a taste of the high-life after taking an experimental drug (NZT) that unlocks the full potential of the human brain. Within days he's wealthy, sexy and extremely arrogant, taking on organised criminals and Robert De Niro's morally dubious business tycoon. Released around the same time as Duncan Jones' dispiritingly conventional 'Moon' follow-up 'Source Code', the unsung 'Limitless' quietly went about being the superior film - both in terms of the interesting sci-fi morality questions it posed and the style in which it was made.

For the most part a male-empowerment wish-fulfilment fantasy gone wrong, 'Limitless' goes to some incredibly dark places, with it even suggested via news reports that Cooper has murdered a woman whilst on NZT (a fact which is chillingly never resolved). This is made all the more sinister by an ending which reminded me of Hal Ashby's 'Being There', as Cooper's protagonist contemplates his potential future as President of the United States, implying that hubris and over-confidence - as well as smarts - are key to success in capitalism.

26) Tales of the Night, dir Michel Ocelot, FRA

What I said: "There is a deep-rooted love of basic human kindness here which reminds me of Miyazaki, and yet Ocelot’s films are never cute or sentimental and you get the impression he is resolutely sincere. And though his art style looks simple and even a bit cheap, the fluidity of his animation – particularly when it involves running and dancing – is at the peak of the art form. Added to that, in terms of imagination 'Tales of the Night' is filled to the brim with ideas."



In a year which saw Pixar release a 'Cars' sequel and Studio Ghibli give us the nice but forgettable 'Arrietty', Michel Ocelot's 3D 'Tales of the Night' is indisputably the best animated film I've seen. Ocelot's embrace of multiculturalism and earnest humanism, as seen previously in 'Kirikou and the Sorceress' and 'Azur & Asmar', is heartening, as is his ability to tell simple children's tales with incredibly sophisticated morality. Animated in silhouette, the use of 3D gives this the look of a pop-up book and complements nicely the film's conceit: that the series of short stories we are told are being performed by a secret, nocturnal theatre company with a surplus of imagination.

25) Coriolanus, dir Ralph Fiennes, UK

What I said: "Making the story relatable and relevant isn’t something [director Ralph Fiennes] does merely by enforcing [a] change of setting... This is also made possible by the actor’s Paul Greengrass-style direction: handheld cameras stripping the film of the formalised, sanitised sheen prevalent in many more traditional adaptations. In fact the scenes of urban warfare in 'Coriolanus' are bloody and visceral like those in a straight-up war movie. The other major contributing factor to the film’s success – and probably the most important – is that the dialogue is delivered incredibly naturalistically which makes it immediately understandable."



Resolutely avoiding the pitfalls of stagy, mannered Shakespeare adaptations, Ralph Fiennes directorial debut delivers one of the Bard's lesser known works with a visceral punch in the jaw. Fiennes himself stars, creating a menacing, towering presence as the titular military general whose abilities as a public speaker do not match his aptitude for conflict. Transported from ancient Rome to what looks like a modern day urban war zone, Fiennes uses riots, camera phones and 24 hour news coverage (brilliantly deploying real Channel 4 news reader Jon Snow as a herald) to explore the play's still-relevant themes. He retains all the original dialogue - much like the 1996 'Romeo & Juliet' - having his actors (including Gerard Butler, Vanessa Redgrave, Brian Cox and Jessica Chastain) deliver their lines in such a way that they are always understood in spite of the arcane verse.

24) Innocent Saturday, dir Aleksandr Mindadze, RUS/UKR

What I said: "Alexander Mindadze’s oppressive style of direction puts the viewer in the same uncomfortable position as his protagonist. You feel unable to escape and paranoid at the threat you can not see. There are very few occasions where the camerawork affords you an establishing shot or even a medium shot, and even fewer times when it is held still. This isn’t a conventional disaster movie and we don’t ever get to glimpse the full horror of the disaster or the eventual mass exodus from the town. This is rather the intimate story of one person struggling with his fears and desires as he grapples with the knowledge that the cheery oblivious, innocents around him – who are busy getting married, playing football and taking walks – are all likely doomed."



This extremely queasy and claustrophobic drama follows one man's doomed bid to escape the Soviet town of Prypiat, modern day Ukraine, in the hours following the 1986 meltdown at the neighbouring Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Valerij (Anton Shagin) works at the plant and, by chance, learns of the disaster before it is belatedly revealed to the public. And yet he can't bring himself to flee town: whether it's morality or fate something compels him to stay and drink the night away with his friends. The almost constant use of close-ups brilliantly gives the sense that something dangerous is in the air they breath, whilst also serving to frustrate the viewer by withholding information. This last action is perhaps the most overt critique of the Moscow government's handling of the disaster in a film which otherwise avoids polemics.

23) True Grit, dir Joel & Ethan Coen, USA

What I said: "I've oft heard it said that the Coens are heartless storytellers: that they don't like their characters and that they are cynical about people. I don't buy into that view at all and if I did I wouldn't be a fan. The Coen brothers, for me anyway, are defined by their willingness to look at all the cruelty of the human experience through the lens of absurdity and stupidity. People aren't evil or good in Coen brothers movies, they usually just don't know any better. Bad things are done by people in a state of panic (most murders in Coen brothers movies occur this way) and pre-planned acts of inhumanity always find their way back to the often hapless perpetrator (think of Jerry Lundegaard in 'Fargo'). Even if, in this case, [Mattie Ross] is a little girl avenging her father's murder - a goal many filmmakers would find unproblematic."



Perhaps this one would factor higher up my list if it was fresher in the memory. But, released last year in the US and a contender at February's Academy Awards, it feels like a 2010 movie. In any case 'True Grit' is a superb western and - by all accounts - a more faithful adaptation of the Charles Portis novel than the fondly remembered John Wayne film of 1969. One reason it stands apart as the stronger film is that Jeff Bridges' cantankerous drunken Marshal Rooster Cogburn is a more effective anti-hero under directors comfortable with moral ambiguity.

The Coens don't imagine that the audience has to like their characters, which isn't the same thing as making them unlikable. They just don't feel the need to flag Cogburn up as any species of hero. Any warmth you feel for him comes because of his flawed, grizzled humanity, and Bridges portrayal, rather than because of his effectiveness with a firearm and penchant for frontier justice. Likewise Oscar-nominated newcomer Hailee Steinfeld, who plays young, revenge-obsessed protagonist Mattie Ross, is scrutinised and ultimately scarred by her adventures - something which wouldn't have been palatable in '69 but is actually essential to the telling of this story. The cold, elegiac tone of the piece - so common to Coen brothers movies from 'Blood Simple' onwards - also fits the western myth so perfectly it's a wonder they haven't done this sooner.

22) Beginners, dir Mike Mills, USA

What I said: "'Beginners' is a tearjerker without feeling manipulative and it's life-affirming without being sickly. A large part of its success rests with Christopher Plummer, whose performance as Hal is especially heartbreaking, with the old man facing death when he is at his most vital. His insatiable appetite for new experiences is particularly bittersweet and Mills' reflection on his own father's life as a closet homosexual in the 1950s shows great insight and empathy. All of the characters are well drawn and sympathetic - with each of them coming to terms with misfortune and tragedy without self-pity. As romantic leads, McGregor and Laurent enjoy great chemistry and their scenes together are a charming."



Until this year, with one possible exception, Ewen McGregor hadn't been in a good film since 1996 - the year of 'Brassed Off' and 'Trainspotting'. My perverse love of 'The Phantom Menace' aside, the closest he'd come to being in a halfway decent movie over the last fifteen years had been in Tim Burton's 'Big Fish'. But in 2011 McGregor starred in Mike Mills' 'Beginners', which is much more than a halfway decent movie. In fact it's a beautiful and incredibly moving portrayal of loss in which McGregor is the emotional centre.

Like the aforementioned 'Big Fish', 'Beginners' is about a son coming to terms with the loss of his father. But whereas Albert Finney's Edward Bloom was a dominating figure with a life of extraordinary (if exaggerated) adventures behind him, the father here - played by Christopher Plummer - succumbs to cancer months after beginning to live anything like a fulfilled life, having only recently embraced his long-repressed homosexuality. McGregor and co-star Melanie Laurent have a good chemistry together and the film is life-affirming without being saccharine.

21) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part Two, dir David Yates, UK/USA

What I said: "Everything seems to fit so well together now that I am even beginning to credit Warner Brothers with some sort of unlikely overall plan behind the series' game of directorial musical chairs. Unlike 'Star Wars' or 'Indiana Jones', the films have grown with their audience and, for those the same approximate age as the heroes, it seems entirely appropriate in retrospect that the brightly coloured, John Williams-scored whimsy of the opening Christopher Columbus episodes has developed into this more macabre and downbeat conclusion. As the stakes have been raised, and the supporting characters have started dying at an exponential rate, so the films have become more complex and interesting."



With the possible exception of Alfonso Cuaron's early entry, the Harry Potter series has never interested me until the last few episodes as directed by David Yates - a UK TV director. In fairness, he's been helped immeasurably by a number of factors outside of his control - the child actors have become better in their decade in front of the camera, whilst the later books seem to be darker and richer - but he still deserves a lot of credit for the way he has handled the end of JK Rowling's ubiquitous child wizard saga. In Yates' Potter films there is a clearer sense of threat, with some quite nasty goings on in this entry in particular (as when a major character has his throat slit before being savagely attacked by a snake whilst lying helpless). And once pantomime characters, like Alan Rickman's Professor Snape, are fleshed out in ways both pleasing and surprising.

But my favourite thing about Yates' take on the series has been the increased banality in the presentation of the non-magical (or "muggle") world in which Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) and his friends must live. Yates seems to understand what Christopher Columbus, Mike Newell and even Cuaron missed: the magic is only wondrous and exciting if it takes place in a recognisable world to our own. The Roald Dahl inspired evil step-family of the earlier installments were larger than life caricatures, meaning that Harry's life was already out of the ordinary and bizarre before he went to Hogwarts school and got all wizardy on their asses. But here magic seems to have a visceral impact on a recognisable world.

In the concluding chapters another pleasing fact has become clear, which I had previously dismissed and for which Rowling presumably deserves credit (I've never read a Harry Potter book). In the past I've bemoaned Harry as this pathetic, passive protagonist - always helped by some deus ex machina or by his more capable friends/members of faculty. But it's now obvious that Harry's special talent is that he is extraordinarily nice to people. All people. He is, however bland it might sound, good. It is this which allows him to succeed because this is why people help him when he's in trouble. It's the same logic that sees the previously bullied, but-of-all-jokes Neville Longbottom (Matt Lewis, above) steal the film's most bombast instances of heroism. Harry Potter isn't about being the smartest or the strongest and an understanding of this allows this megabucks franchise to attain a sort of innocent nobility.

Come back later in the week for numbers 20-11.

'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part Two' review:

Having reviewed the overall excellent 'Deathly Hallows: Part One' last year, there isn't a lot I can write about this final part of the Harry Potter saga without repeating myself. Save for some take it or leave it 3D, it's just as good if not a bit better than that penultimate episode - certainly in terms of action and excitement, with most of the build-up now out of the way. The young actors remain vastly improved under David Yates' direction, as does the whole look and tone of the film which is dark and scary. Scenes of magic and fantasy are again made a thousand times more awe-inspiring by the fact that Yates keeps everything else so grounded - even mundane. Whilst the heroes are now free from the constraints and routines of Hogwarts school, and its campy thespian teachers, allowing them to become more active participants in the unfolding narrative as opposed to awestruck passengers.

In fact, everything seems to fit so well together now that I am even beginning to credit Warner Brothers with some sort of unlikely overall plan behind the series' game of directorial musical chairs. Unlike 'Star Wars' or 'Indiana Jones', the films have grown with their audience and, for those the same approximate age as the heroes, it seems entirely appropriate in retrospect that the brightly coloured, John Williams-scored whimsy of the opening Christopher Columbus episodes has developed into this more macabre and downbeat conclusion. As the stakes have been raised, and the supporting characters have started dying at an exponential rate, so the films have become more complex and interesting.



I don't want to oversell it: this is by no means a perfect movie and I'm still no convert to the "franchise" overall. Some plot developments still don't make a lot of sense and most of the side-quests are resolved in ways which are anti-climactic (notably when Potter's "suicide mission" return to Hogwarts turns out to be a cake walk). Yet it's become impossible to deny that these films have, if only in the final stretch, become way above average summer family movies, at least competent on every level and in some respects approaching exceptional. For instance, Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe is now an intelligent and immensely capable talent, with a deliciously offbeat, quirky sensibility that Hollywood will hopefully make room for (though I suspect otherwise).

Even the gurning Rupert Grint and the perennially huffy Emily Watson are now pretty decent co-stars and it is genuinely moving when their series-spanning romantic sub-plot finally reaches its resolution (with those around me moved to happy tears). The engaging Tom Felton is underused as minor series antagonist Draco Malfoy, but is as interesting and intense as ever when he is on screen, whilst Alan Rickman as Snape, for so long a scenery chewing caricature just "having fun with the role", is a real dramatic force in this installment, with a moving flashback sequence which serves as a rewarding payoff for those (like myself) who never bothered read the books. And speaking of Snape, this film picks up where the last film left off when it comes to potentially frightening young children.



The last installment began with a weeping schoolteacher being tortured and murdered in front of a watching audience of evil wizards - some of whom were members of the school community and parents of Harry's classmates. A few scenes later, Watson's Hermoine was erasing herself from her parents' memory so as to keep them out of trouble. Pretty heavy stuff, though in this respect 'Deathly Hallows: Part Two' arguably ups the ante. One scene in particular sees a wounded character slowly bitten to death by a huge snake, which has a surprisingly visceral impact as we watch the scene unfold from behind frosted glass. And this is what is so good about Yates' Harry Potter films: not that they are dark for darkness's own sake or that they have moved away from a kiddie demographic, but because he realises what most filmmakers don't.

Children are OK with being scared. In fact they seek it out - trying to watch what they aren't supposed to and frightening each other with increasingly depraved stories under the blankets. Children want to go to school the next day and talk about these darker, scarier moments with their friends. I'm not saying that the scare-factor of 'Deathly Hallows: Part Two' won't be too much for some children - and parents will have to be the judge of that, with it rightly given a '12A' certificate - but I'd suspect a lot of 7 or 8 year-olds would find this film thrilling because it doesn't talk down to them. Because it doesn't deny the existence of death and because it actually allows its villain, Ralph Fiennes as Voldemort, to be as evil as everybody has spent the previous seven films saying he is.



That said, the film isn't without its quieter moments and even bits of comic relief, with the likes of Maggie Smith given some fairly chortlesome lines. It's genuinely heartening to witness the coming-of-age heroics of the until now faintly pathetic Neville Longbottom (a much improved Matthew Lewis), perhaps Hogwarts' most unlikely champion. Most of the movie is set during an epic battle which brings together great stone golems, haunting wraiths and armies of homicidal mercenaries as one huge set-piece follows another. But whereas these sorts of sections have been a source of great disinterest in earlier installments, Yates has done so well to engage our interest with the protagonists that we genuinely feel invested in what is taking place amid the explosions.

By now the battle lines have been clearly drawn between those of you that love Harry Potter and those of you that wouldn't turn your head to see this latest installment if Warner Brothers projected it onto your bedroom wall. However dismissing 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part Two' out of hand could mean you miss one of the year's most accomplished summer movies. This is the second part of what is easily the best live-action family film since the first 'Pirates of the Caribbean' almost a decade ago. Even the sentimental and completely superfluous last five minutes can be forgiven as people of the right age (which sadly doesn't include this ageing cynic) will be bidding a bond farewell to characters who've been with them for as long as they can remember. Even for the rest of us this marks the end of an ambitious decade-long cinematic experiment the likes of which we may never see again.

'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part Two' is rated '12A' by the BBFC and will be on general release from July 15th.

'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One' review: All's well that ends well?

I have never read, or even been tempted to read, a Harry Potter book. Nor have I enjoyed the series of films J.K Rowling's writing has inspired which having begun in 2001 with 'The Philosopher's Stone' - and due to conclude next year - now span (and for some possibly define) a cinema-going decade. For me there has always been something very twee about these stories - set within a boarding school for witches and wizards - and something incredibly establishment about their very existence and place in the "British" film industry. Worse still, it has always felt like the series' best ideas and characters had been stolen wholesale from other works: books by Roald Dahl, C.S Lewis and J.R.R Tolkien. And with Warner Brothers having eschewed hiring Terry Gilliam (the author's publicly stated preferred choice) these uninspiring tales have also been beset by a succession of similarly uninspiring filmmakers.

'Home Alone' director Chris Columbus helmed the first two movies, making films of almost staggering blandness. Some brief respite was given to the series' in the form of the third outing, 'The Prisoner of Azkaban', as darling of the Mexican New Wave Alfonso Cuarón brought to that film a more naturalistic approach in the acting (especially in the film's young cast) as well as a darker colour palette and some more imaginative shot choices. Yet it was still ultimately a pretty poor film, still weighed down by interminably dull scenes of "Quidditch" and even featuring Lenny Henry. But whatever its flaws, the series' third chapter was enriched by Cuarón as director. Though it would be short lived, as soon Harry Potter was thrust firmly back into cinematic mediocrity once again with the Mike Newell directed fourth film boring me near to tears when I saw it at the cinema in 2005.



It is strange that having gone through three established film directors the series would find its salvation in the hands of a little known British TV director. David Yates, prior to directing the fifth Potter film, 2007's 'The Order of the Phoenix', was best known for directing edgy TV dramas 'State of Play', 'Sex Traffic' and 'The Girl in the Cafe'. It was the same sort of left-field logic that had led Warner Brothers to hire Cuarón off the back of his sexually explicit 'Y Tu Mamá También' and, as with that choice, it has proven to be inspired - though this wasn't evident right away. 'The Order of the Phoenix', still bound by the setting of Hogwarts school and its myriad of dreary lessons and irksomely quirky teachers, was only a marginal improvement on its forbears. It was actually with 'The Half-Blood Prince', the sixth film in the series, that Yates really turned things around.

'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince' is relatively light on action. It is a slower, more character based film which found the leads - Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson - now able to act. It was intense and visceral in a way never before attempted by these films, and in a way missing from most modern kids films in general. There were more interesting characters and themes, as it looked at the school life of the series' arch-villain Tom Riddle (AKA Voldemort) and also made other perennial villains more human, such as Draco Malfoy, played by Tom Felton. Once a two-dimensional, snarling school bully, Draco was here portrayed as a troubled child in the middle of an identity crisis, torn apart as he struggled with the moral implications of his family's allegiance with "the dark Lord" and his growing unease at his own grave part in their evil schemes.



Yet even when these films were not terrible, they were forever bringing out the cynic and the pedant in me as a viewer. I was forever asking "why are they doing that?", "how come that's suddenly possible?" and "why didn't they think to do that two scenes ago?" My problem was often that the films' internal logic seemed inconsistent and muddled. Often Potter himself seemed like a, frankly, shit protagonist. He was forever being saved by some contrived deus ex machina (such as the magical sword at the end of film two) or by his teachers. He was always being told exactly what to do, every step of the way. For example, when in film four he has make a golden egg reveal a clue, it takes Robert Pattinson telling him to "try giving it a bath", followed by another character telling him to "try putting in into the water" when he gets there - so unable is he to make that logical leap. My girlfriend was always saying "it makes more sense in the books". But I don't care. These films should make sense in their own right, or else they are just expensive fan-service.

The reason I have chosen to begin my review of the latest installment, 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One', with this account of my own history with these films is two-fold. Firstly, I wasn't reviewing films when these came out and I wanted to state my position on them here. Secondly, I thought it important to provide a context for my unabashed praise of this latest film. For in 'Deathly Hallows Part One' I have found a Potter film I can actually enjoy.



Never before have two films in the same franchise seemed so totally alien to each other as 'Philopher's Stone' and 'Deathly Hallows' must look placed side-by-side. (OK, maybe the Bond series has changed more over its near fifty years of being, but these Potter movies are direct sequels less than ten years apart.) 'Deathly Hallows Part One' is not a film in which Potter inflates his nasty auntie into a balloon or takes part in a "Triwizard Tournament" or tastes bogey flavoured magic sweeties. It is a film which opens on a scene of torture and murder (of a bound and weeping school teacher no less), in which one of Harry's friends is casually killed off screen and another dies bleeding in his arms. The first time we see Harry's friend Hermione Granger she is tearfully erasing herself from her parents' memory so as to keep them safe. Whilst the fourth film boasted Jarvis Cocker singing a song called "Do the Hippogriff", this seventh film sees Harry turn on a radio to hear "O Children" by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, to which he and Hermione temporarily relieve their gloom with a melancholic dance, in an emotionally charged scene which I'm told doesn't exist in the book. It's a moment which will probably be ignored for being in a Harry Potter blockbuster, but I feel a similar moment in a "serious" film would receive more attention.

If 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone' was like a Famous Five story, then this new film feels like something out of Cormac McCarthy's The Road. The bleak, recognisably English landscapes are desolate and our heroes are often alone, uncertain whether anyone they know has survived. There is precious little comedy relief in this chapter. Which is nice as the "gags" in previous Potter movies have been woeful. What lightness and humour there is comes from the central three characters friendship which seems more real then ever before - perhaps as a result of the fact that these child actors have genuinely grown up together (one of the series' real pleasures). Yates' Potter films have been enriched by their taking place in a more recognisable, and even banal, world. The last film saw Yates stage a deadly Voldemort attack on London's Millennium Bridge (a modern and lesser known landmark as of yet untouched by Michael Bay or Roland Emmerich) and similarly 'Deathly Hallows' presents a modern, lived-in and refreshingly normal picture of London - neither touristy or excessively grimy. Yates has realised that in making the "muggle" (non-magical) world less wondrous a place, the magic of Potter & co. is given room to be all the more exciting by contrast.



So it is that the chase sequence near the film's start is the most exciting bit of action from any chapter of the series. As Harry flips around a tunnel to dodge cars on his motorcycle (well, more accurately Hagrid's motorcycle - Harry is in the side-car) it is Harry and his friends integration into a more convincing "real world" setting that makes it work. There are also far fewer times when things are over-explained to us via Harry, or where the the heroes actions cease making sense and robbed of Dumbledore as a benevolent, omnipotent guide, it is up to Harry, Hermione and Ron to solve the film's problems. And as the stakes have never been higher (this is after all the first part of the series' finale) the film is also much more involving than those that came before.

It is rare to find a film series that actually grows up with its audience. When George Lucas made his much-maligned 'Star Wars' prequels, fans felt he'd infantilised the saga. Those films, with the slapstick comedy of Jar Jar Binks and an increased pandering to the "toyetic", certainly feel as though they are aimed at a young audience rather than the thirty-somethings who grew up with the original trilogy. In contrast, these films (I imagine thanks to the books) do seem to be going on a journey with their young audience. Children that started off with 'Philosopher's Stone' have a film in 'Deathly Hallows' that they can enjoy ten years on and which may actually frighten and excite them.



'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One' is in a different league to its predecessors. It's consistently tonally serious and dark, whereas even the last film would switch uneasily between tragedy and light-hearted comedy all in the space of a scene (note the sudden change from talking about a central character's murder to talking about Harry's latest crush in the final scene of 'Half-Blood Prince'). It also better develops its characters and benefits from a more interesting story with higher stakes. The distracting array of British actors hamming it up is also less of a problem here, as most of our time is spent in the company of the three children.

Perhaps my only real criticism is that it wouldn't work on its own: you need to have seen the other films and/or read the books to understand it. This is to be expected as it's a conclusion (or at least the beginning of one), but I would hesitate to recommend this film to newcomers or to label it any kind of classic. It will always be bound up with the other, less good films which have sadly already undermined this story. It is a shame then that it took four films before Yates took the reins. Although maybe some of this film's pleasure does come from its stark contrast with the earlier chapters - and with the Columbus years in particular. Perhaps it only works because those films exist: because the brightly lit, Christmas card aesthetic of the earlier efforts is there to be subverted in this way. Whatever the reason 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One' worked for me - a self-described Potterphobe - it did work. As a result I find myself in the unlikely position of looking forward to next year and 'Part Two'. Perhaps, as far as the Harry Potter movies are concerned, all's well that ends well.

'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One' is rated '12A' by the BBFC - for being bloody scary, I'd imagine.