So good there MUST be magic at work.

Rating: 9/10 (25 November 2010)

The biggest problem with dividing the movie version of HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS into two parts was always going to be that the middle third of that book isn't exactly brimming over with triumphant and joyful rainbows and lollipops. Ordinarily in an episodic serial the like of this one, we tend to get small payoffs along the way to the more climactic victory, each installment coming to a satisfying conclusion even if an over-arching and meta-style cliffhanger still looms. So how, I had long wondered, would the folks at Potter Central deal with that issue? At what point in the all-pervasive bleakness of well, the majority of THE DEATHLY HALLOWS, would they find us our moment of the happy on which to bring down the curtain, and usher in Part 2? As it turns out, they just don't. The movie simply ends, very abruptly and on what can only be described on the biggest downer since those plucky fisherman all died at the end of THE PERFECT STORM.
Boo.
You know, it's a real shame that this sudden and most non-triumphant To Be Continued left me with such a bad taste in my mouth, because everything that came before it was simply, wondrously, gob-smackingly marvelous from start to (almost) finish. Well written, beautifully executed with superlative performances and a pitch-perfect score, this is a movie full of tension and humor and romance and drama and action and suspense and oh, so much more.
Ah, y'know what? Forget about that bad taste. 'Cause thinking back now to all the deliciousness that preceded it, all is forgiven.
From the opening scene, this movie took hold of my central nervous system and bent it to its will like a kid kneading Play-Doh. Where I was supposed to laugh, I laughed. Where I was supposed to cry, I cried. Where I was supposed to be shocked, or scared, or concerned, or outraged, I was all of those things, and more besides. THE DEATHLY HALLOWS takes you on a tumultuous emotional journey, from beginning to lamentable end, as though your heart were lodged inside that runaway flying car in which Harry and Ron arrived at Hogwarts in THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS -– after which it then gets thoroughly beaten up by the Whumping Willow.
The two hours and change of this movie fly by, and yet so much happens that, in retrospect, it seems like it must have been a longer film. And yet nothing feels omitted or rushed or glossed over although the final deus ex Dobby was, perhaps, a little too heavily signposted.
Speaking of which, there is a lot of death in the movie, both seen and merely referenced. If you're planning to take the kids to see this one, and you have kids who frighten easily, then take my advice and don't. The later HARRY POTTER books are questionable children's fare; this movie is emphatically anything but a kid flick.
It is also, without a doubt, the best HARRY POTTER movie yet -- which is pretty impressive, considering I wouldn't have accounted the book upon which it's based even in the series' Top 5. I'll go even further and say that this may be the best movie adaptation of a book in recent memory.
Okay, so I wasn't thrilled with the ending. But upon reflection, it may just be that I wasn't thrilled that it ended it all; certainly, July 2011 cannot get here soon enough. And in the meantime, at least we have the book... and considering they were able to produce THIS great of a movie out of only the first half of it, then perhaps it's time I gave it another go.
This review is an excerpt. Full review at Geek Speak Magazine: geekspeakmagazine (dot) com