“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I,” the first installment of a two-part adaptation of author J.K. Rowling’s final book in the Harry Potter series (the second part comes out next summer) is darker and more tragic than any of the films that have come before it. The mischievous and playful whimsy that defined the series in the beginning is now almost completely absent.

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GRADE: A

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“Deathly Hallows” lacks almost all perceptible warmth, hope and fun. And that is precisely what makes it great.

Dumbledore is dead, Hogwarts is besieged, and the Ministry of Magic has fallen under the control of the Death Eaters. Without their professors to guide and protect them, Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson) set off on a desperate mission of their own to find and destroy the Horcruxes, slivers of Voldemort’s (Ralph Fiennes) soul and the fount of his immortality.

There is no doubt that the Harry Potter films have been getting progressively darker, moving further and further from their genial, lighthearted roots toward an inevitable, catastrophic showdown between good and evil.

But they have never felt this heavy, this unremittingly bleak. For the first time, the audience feels the menace the characters feel. At last, the stakes seem real, the peril genuine, the terror palpable. This time around, beloved friends are put in real jeopardy, and not all of them make it out alive. More will surely fall.

While young children and many of their parents may recoil at this transformation, those who grew up with Harry and his friends will see it as nothing more than a logical, natural progression. The sinister oppressiveness (and the sensual romantic tension) pervasive throughout make sense only if you grant that the series, like the characters and indeed much of the audience, has come to maturity over the decade since the first film came out. The naive, innocent faces that first graced “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” now, unmistakably, belong to adults. And the weight of the story is commensurate with this gestation.

David Yates has made the most epic of all the Harry Potter films, full of sweeping majesty and palpable terror. His distinctive visual style incorporates a dystopian police state fans of Terry Gilliam will instantly recognize, a haunting extended animation sequence, and otherworldly Gothic landscapes. But beyond its impeccably technical prowess, “Deathly Hallows: Part 1” does something quite amazing — it evolves. What began as a children’s fantasy film is now a genuinely grown-up drama. The mythology (which borrows elements from “The Lord of the Rings”) is richer, deeper and immeasurably more enduring than ever before.

And yet, more than ever, “Harry Potter” remains a human drama. The most interesting action is not what occurs at the business end of outstretched wands but between the hearts of best friends who have stood together in the face of monstrous evil, yet do not know if their bond can survive what lies on the other side of puberty. Only one thing is certain — next summer’s conclusion can’t come fast enough.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I

Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Ralph Fiennes, Bill Nighy, Helena Bonham Carter

Director: David Yates              

Rated: PG-13 (for some sequences of intense action violence, frightening images and brief sensuality)

Running time: 2 hours, 26 minutes

Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter in “HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS.” Photo by COURTESY WARNER BROS. PICTURES

Jaap Buitendijk

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