Close. Cigar Withheld.

Rating: 6/10 (11 June 2012)

(Read PS first, if you please.) This final HP halfway makes it. Yes, we all love HP. Yes, all the films have been done with great style. Still, there was an onus on DH2, and Yates (and screenplay) miss here and there. - On the plus side, Radcliffe finally becomes a real actor. - On the plusser side, Rickman is BRILLIANT and he was robbed of a supporting Oscar. - Bad news (and, as with other quibbles, the movies should stand independently from the books): Bellatrix. She is equal to Vol in sheer evil, and she is grossly responsible for many gleeful murders and tortures. It's fine to have Molly kill her, but the moment was far, far too brief. This needed to be real revenge, to satisfy fans so hating of LeStrange. - The Kings Cross limbo. Egad. I know it's in the book, I know Albus needs to redeem himself to Harry, but the device was annoying and trite. - The Ravenclaw ghost scene was far too protracted. Yes, there had to be suspense about getting this horcrux, but it felt overdone. - Dumbledore's mysterious past and hunger for power: why allude to it strongly, then leave nothing answered? It was like the Bagstock presence in DH1. We movie watchers knew it was important, but the film did not clarify how. - Finally, the end. In LOTR, Jackson understood the audience needed to hear Frodo stop in wonderment, that the ring was gone. Same thing. When the 3 friends are kicking stones around, there had to be SOME expression relating that a vast doom that's haunted them all (and the world) was gone. Not too much, mind you, but some astonishment from Harry, certainly. - Epilogue. So, it was all about the kids? Generation Next? How dull. Better to have only referred to Harry's naming his son after Severus, which was right and touching. PS More bad: how, if you don't read the book, can you rationalize Harry being alive after the forest? All we know is The Vol throws the killing spell, not the kill-unintentional-horcrux spell. Also - far too much of gratuitous, aimless running around of students during and before the battle. Seriously. These kids all acted like they had no idea of what was going on, and were utterly defenseless. Oh, yes: the script itself. It's pretty weak. Maybe Neville's awful speech is how teens talk, but this needed to be stunning, not trite. PS Read the books. Egad. Makes Helena Ravenclaw's ghost worse here, and why on earth is she referring to a 'boy' who wanted to destroy the diadem in the past, when there was no need to destroy it before Riddle, the boy, got it to begin with? Lots of mistakes now really glaring, and the lamest part of the film is that it fails to explain Harry's sacrifice properly, as it echoed his mother's. WHY, oh, why, did they not want the tension of the final duel in the film, and that wonderful bit with Harry calling V by his real name, and schooling him? This humiliation of V then makes his quick death all right. I know a film must make changes, but to ignore the very best of the book is just plain criminal.