3/5
(PG) UK. Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson
It’s still on in Dubai cinemas, and now you have the chance to watch it at home. Yet anyone who complained that the previous episode in the Harry Potter saga felt too much like scene-setting for the final showdown will be equally disappointed with Deathly Hallows Part 1. A film with no beginning and no end but a whole lot of expository middle, this is the least satisfying in the series.

The first half hour is business as usual: an entertaining balance of sorcery, slapstick and sweetness, enlivened by a handful of scary scenes and a surprisingly sadistic streak of black humour. But once the kids decide to break out on their own on the trail of the four remaining shards of evil Voldemort’s soul, things take a bleaker turn, and they never quite recover.