5.0
Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Pt.2 Review
At the mid point of my High School years, Harry Potter was a huge deal with the kids who read books. As a kid who did not read books, I didn’t really know what the fuss was about. Looking at the covers of the books they looked kind of dumb, a fantasy story for kids who couldn’t comprehend the ideas in the more legendary fantasy books. When the rumours began about turning the books into films I still didn’t care, and seeing the first trailers didn’t sway my opinion.
I finished High School in 2002, the same year that the second film, The Chamber Of Secrets, was released. At this point it looked like this phenomenon was going to last quite a while, especially if they were going to transfer all 7 books to film, so I thought it might be time to see what the fuss was about. I started watching the first film, directed by Chris Columbus, and found the world and characters very enjoyable. It was light hearted fun and I could see the appeal for young kids, but it wasn’t until the end where A DUDE HAD ANOTHER DUDE’S FACE ON THE BACK OF HIS HEAD!… that I finally realised this material could go in a much darker direction if given to the right director.
It wasn’t until the third film, directed by Alfonso Cuaron, that we got that darker tone that should have been there since the beginning and it was at this point that I actually fell in love with this series. The first two films set up the world well enough, but the third film is where the true tone of the series was found and the directors that followed after Cuaron kept that tone going on through the rest of the films, which is an essential part of the material. It’s high flying fantasy fun, but as the series goes on the material gets darker and the director of the last four films in the series, David Yates, hasn’t held back from showing some very rough things just because kids might be watching.
So here we are, the final installment of one of the biggest and greatest fantasy series ever made. If you read my review of part 1 you’ll probably remember that I didn’t love it that much, it was slow and not a whole lot happened, but after watching part 2 it’s obvious to see why part 1 played that way. Part 1 essentially got all of the story out of the way to make room for part 2′s epic battles and highly emotional character moments. This is a well made film and a fitting end to the Harry Potter story. It looks amazing, the effects are the best they’ve ever been and all the loose ends are tied up as well as they could be.
This is the last time we’ll see new adventures from these characters and everyone gets their own moment to shine. Of course I’m not going to spoil it all if you’ve never read the books, but needless to say, if you expect something to happen to certain characters it most likely will. Professor Snape finally gets his day in the sun and it’s a heart wrenching moment in a film that’s full of them. Harry learns things, Ron and Hermione learn things, even Neville Longbottom learns things. Revelations abound in this final Harry Potter and it’s great to see how far the acting by the younger cast members has come since that first film, with all of them putting in top performances.
David Yates has done an excellent job in finishing this series of films. Having directed 4 of the 8 films, it really has become his series. While the third film may still be my favourite of the franchise, Yates’ films are the ones that have pushed the story along to its conclusion and bought a level of realism to a world full of Wizards and Witches. If they had a different director for every film after Columbus left, I don’t think this franchise would have ended up being as great as it is. These last four films were the most pivotal to the Harry Potter story and having one director make all of them has resulted in a consistent tone and quality that they needed. I don’t know what Yates is going to do next, his resume before Potter is full of TV movies, but he’s proven that he can handle huge blockbusters and this film is the biggest feather in his cap.
So, it’s obvious that I loved the film, but your love of it will depend on how much you’ve loved the other films in the franchise. There is no conceivable way for anybody to just jump into this movie without seeing every other movie before it. There’s no backstory set up here, no “Previously on Harry Potter”, you’re thrust straight into it from the exact point the first part finished and that movie didn’t have any set up either. If you’re just now thinking to yourself “I might check out that Harry Potter thing”, then you’ll need to start from the beginning because there are so many nods to every other film in the series in this final tale that you really will get a lot more out of it if you’ve seen them all. Obviously, if you’re a Potter-head, you’ve already seen it so… good for you!
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 2 is a fitting end to one of the greatest fantasy saga’s of all time. It’s extremely well made and I have absolutely nothing bad to say about it beyond “Uh… Why is Neville a bad ass all of a sudden?”. It’s good, real good. Highly recommended.
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