As stated previously (I think), I'm a fan of the books and the movies have been reasonably entertaining. Same goes for the first half of the finale. It's good, better than any Twilight adaptation I've seen, but far from great and occasionally annoying.
Harry's story picks up with Death Eaters and Voldemort in control of the wizarding world. As such, Harry, Hermoine and Ron are on the run. Meanwhile, they must find and destroy Voldemort's Horcruxes, the bits of his soul he's hidden in objects, in order to finally kill him. Another mystery crops up in the Deathly Hallows, magical objects of power that will play a role in Voldemort's victory or downfall.
The movie is a mixed bag of exciting and dull. The first half is action packed, with Harry and company escaping an ambush by Death Eaters, then an attack at Ron's house during a wedding, and ending with the group infiltrating the Ministry of Magic, attacking a high ranking official in Voldemort's government and narrowly escaping the head of security.
After that, the movie, as does the book, slows down to show Harry unsure about his next move. They have no clues on finding the next horcrux. They wander isolated forests, staying out of sight, waiting for Ron to heal, and slowly turning against each other. Lots of shots of people staring into the forest. Not exciting.
The movie ends in the right place, a little bit like Empire Strikes Back, things looking grim for our heroes and the bad guy triumphant.
The problems I have with the movie are little things that are standard for the series thus far, half-ass attempts to appease the readers while trying to keep the movie under 10 hours. In that way, Deathly Hallows Part 1 reminds me of Chamber, where we rush through a bunch of not terribly important information to get to the meat of the movie.
The worst of this is the beginning, when everyone comes to escort Harry to the Ron's house. Here, we get the rushed information that Bill, Ron's brother, is marrying Fleur, and he casually throws in that he was attacked recently by Greyback. Only, in the books, Bill is introduced in like book 4 and he's attacked by Greyback at Hogwarts at the end of book 6. Of course, as I've complained of before, the idiots CUT the fight sequence from the movie adaptation. At this point, why even mention that he was attacked? Also, the movie doesn't set up the wedding at all. Gimme a 10 second scene where Harry looks at an invite before everyone gets to his house. Is that too hard?
I've got more examples, but I don't want to drag this out. If you've read the books, you'll spot the problems. If not, it may not bother you. As a reader, I find the screenplay acceptable, but uninspiring.
On an acting note, this is the first movie from beginning to end I didn't think negatively about the three stars. For once, they each appeared capable of a range of emotion. I reserve the right to backtrack after a second viewing.
It will be really fun to see how the film butchers the finale. So far, they've set it up terribly to follow the book's version of events. I'm pretty sure they will stick with the book version, but it will give Harry Haters easy material to mock.
First Viewing: 3+2+2+2+3 = 12