Harry Potter exceeds the expectations

As someone who has never read the books from the Harry Potter series, nor seen many of the movies, I was not expecting to find the most recent addition to the franchise, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 of 2," to be any good.

It did, however, exceed the expectation.

The story line followed the typical continuation of any series, with action at every turn to hook the viewers in. Following the death of Dumbledore from the previous film, as well as the return of the Dark Lord Voldemort, Potter and his friends are forced to flee from their homes from the hounds of darkness. Constantly on the run, Potter and his two closest friends, Ron Weasley (played by Rupert Grint) and Hermione Granger (played by Emma Watson), must set out on their own in hopes of finding the Holocruxes and destroying the Dark Lord.

As someone who has missed quite a number of movies, it was a complete shock to find out that Dumbledore had died in a previous movie, Moving past that quickly however, the movie was filled with action and adventure, something that the few other movies I have seen of the series severely lacked. This film did not disappoint, with an amazing balance of action and adventuring, and plenty of storyline and plot development to keep the die hard Potter fans in the theater happy.

There was however, a massive amount of comedy throughout the movie. While that was not necessarily a terrible direction for the movie to take, simply the vast amount of comedy did seem to be a bit much at times.

Likewise, some parts of the movie had a large amount of plot and no action, while others had a lot of action and very little plot. It seemed like there could have been a better balance throughout the movie, but then that may not have been quite the Harry Potter that the diehard fans had come to know and love.

The only complaint that I had was, as someone that clearly has not spent a lot of time thinking, reading or watching anything related to the franchise, I was completely lost for most of the movie, recognizing few of the characters and completely behind on the storyline. There were some explanations and flashbacks later on in the movie, but not enough to catch anyone up on what exactly they missed.

Not a great movie to start with, but still a decent movie, surpassing my expectations for a Friday afternoon. I rate the movie 4.5 stars out of 5.

Eat, Pray, Love is a pretty bad movie.

As a general rule, hanging out with people that I meet at work is off an off limits area. A single fight, accidental kiss or one of my lude comments makes the work environment very uncomfortable.

Despite this, I agreed to go with my boss at The Clarion and a co-worker to a free movie at the Memorial Union Theater last Saturday, Nov. 13th.

Worst. Idea. Ever.

"Eat, Prey, Love" has an interesting concept when it comes to storyline, and there are many decent actors within the movie. Julia Roberts, playing the main character Elizabeth Gilbert, finds herself educated, well employed and living with her husband, a man who loves her dearly, in a house they own.

Naturally, she finds herself unhappy, and soon after she leaves him, has an affair, initiates a divorce and offers her husband every speck of wealth she has to sign the papers.

It is also natural that, when someone is brought into this situation, the best possibly course of action is to take a trip to Italy, India and Bali on the advice given her to by a shaman in Bali years ago.

The storyline is expertly acted out and the actors themselves do an amazing job throughout the film, however it falls far short of what one can even fathom for anything near non-fiction. Despite this, the acting keeps you involved and wanting to see more of the movie, but eventually the story drags on to the point of wearing the viewer thing and becomes too predictable.

The underlying themes to the movie (Eat to fulfill your life, Pray and believe in yourself, and Love unconditionally) are accurately portrayed, and one finds it easy to identify early in the movie. Overall, the movie is interesting, but not worth anything more than a rental.

I rate this movie 2 1/2 stars out of 5.