Attention Muggles, Death Eaters and Daniel Radcliffe groupies. The boy wizard is back again, this time sporting much more facial hair and a surly attitude, as the latest trailer for the Deathly Hallows has finally surfaced in the last week. The not-quite-final instalment of the hugely popular and moolah-making machine that is the Harry Potter film franchise is almost upon us. Warner Bros. Studios and Director David Yates have split the final book of the series into two movie instalments (cha-ching!), ostensibly to deliver the fullest, richest final Harry Potter experience they can – and from the looks of this trailer, they might just deliver yet again. Yates, who helmed Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, scored high marks for transitioning the series to a moodier, darker place.
Watch the trailer after the jump.
While the first few teaser trailers broadly covered both instalments of the coming Deathly Hallows films, this new trailer is focused entirely on Part I. The stakes are laid out as Voldemort’s war kicks into overdrive, the Ministry is infiltrated by the Death Eaters, and Harry Potter and his friends are forced on the run. The trailer is fast, tense and explosive – drumming up a dizzying blockbuster feel for what is in all frankness a giant cliff-hanger movie for the real finale of Part II. The earlier trailers were a little too slow and dull, and the risk is that Part I will feel the same.
Fortunately this trailer is exciting and powerfully nostalgic enough to finally get excited for The Deathly Hallows. Elements of the larger story are teased as well, with brief glimpses of the Deathly Hallows Symbol, Dumbledore’s eye in the reflection of a mirror, and the Nazi-esque takeover and makeover of the Ministry of Magic. Fans of the books will quickly recognise the appearance of new characters like Minister for Magic Rufus Scrimgeour, played by Bill Nighy, and Xenophilius Lovegood, played by Rhys Ifans. There’s also a blitz of returning characters for good nostalgic measure, which reads like a who’s who of British actors with the likes of Imelda Staunton as Doloris Umbridge, David Thewlis’ Remus Lupin, Helena Bonham Carter as Bellatrix Lestrange and Alan Rickman’s iconic Severus Snape. Most prominent of all through the entire trailer is of course the Dark Lord Voldemort himself, played by Ralph Fiennes, highlighting the unavoidable showdown between him and Harry Potter as the words “This Fall Only One Can Live” flares across the screen in the trailer’s climactic moments.
As a Potter-maniac convert myself, this thrilling trailer hit the spot for the most anticipated film of the year’s end. Expect Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I to hit Australian theatres in mid-November 2010.
