HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 2:short review





The evil Lord Voldemort now has the Elder Staff and prepares to attack Hogwarts with his followers.  Meanwhile Harry, Ron, and Hermione continue  their quest of finding and destroying the three remaining Horcruxes, the magical items responsible for Voldemort’s immortality, but as the mystical Deathly Hallows are uncovered, Voldemort finds out about their mission……

   So the saga of Harry Potter comes to a close, and for this critic it’s not before time!  There have been undoubted highpoints in each film, and the third and fourth movie were reasonably good, but for much of the time these films are just dull, seemingly too constrained by the necessity of sticking to J.K.Rowling to be truly imaginative, and especially since the mediocre David Yates, the director who thinks taking the colour out makes a film dark, has taken over the series.  How I wish somebody like Terry Gilliam or Guillermo Del Toro would have done one of these!  Still, I must admit, this final episode is one of the better ones and does at times have real dramatic weight.  It moves at a surprisingly fast pace, has probably more action than the last three of four films combined, and even has the odd good plot twist in what generally has been a tediously stretched out and weakly plotted saga.  It also dares to get quite dark, until a mawkish happy ending rights things, and I’m probably the only one who thinks such an ending is out of place considering how supposedly ‘mature’  each film is supposed to be.  In fact it didn’t even make much sense to me in terms of the story.  Yates actually shows himself to have considerably improved as a director, with some terrific camerawork and the odd really well staged scene, such as a snake killing partially seen through the other side of a window, though he still lacks a real flair for fantasy, and the battle scenes come across as a poor imitation of those in The Lord Of The Rings.  The effects are mostly fine and occasionally quite interesting visually, though the performances by the young cast are little better than they were ten years ago, and Radcliffe is downright awful in some scenes.  There is that wonderful older cast to enjoy of course, many of whom are given great moments to shine.  Generally better than expected, if you dislike Harry Potter [in which category I don’t quite place myself, it’s all just kind of okay in my opinion] you may be pleasantly surprised, though it’ll hardly make you a convert.  Then again, I love The Lord of The Rings and even prefer The Chronicles Of Narnia to Potter, so what do I know?!

Rating: ★★★★★★½☆☆☆

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About Dr Lenera 1969 Articles
I'm a huge film fan and will watch pretty much any type of film, from Martial Arts to Westerns, from Romances [though I don't really like Romcoms!]] to Historical Epics. Though I most certainly 'have a life', I tend to go to the cinema twice a week! However,ever since I was a kid, sneaking downstairs when my parents had gone to bed to watch old Universal and Hammer horror movies, I've always been especially fascinated by horror, and though I enjoy all types of horror films, those Golden Oldies with people like Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee probably remain my favourites. That's not to say I don't enjoy a bit of blood and gore every now and again though, and am also a huge fan of Italian horror, I just love the style.

1 Comment

  1. Oh dear oh dear mate, doesn’t sound like you liked this much. Your comment about taking the colour out to make the film darker did tickle me though! Each to their own though mate, I lvoed it, as you know, I even loved the end. I think though, like Potter or not, the sries has given British cinema one hell of a boost.

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