Perfect ending for a movie saga that changed many of us

Rating: 10/10 (13 July 2011)

After seeing the extremely good Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 in theatres last year, I started immediately waiting for the final movie. I have grown with the Potter books and movies; I was 11 when the first movie had it's premiere, and now I'm 21. So in a way, I am one of those lucky people who have actually grown up to adulthood with Harry.
As the first part was so great, it created very high expectations for this movie. But seeing the trailers, the movie looked very, very good.
I live in Finland, so I was lucky to see this movie last night, as it premiered here in Finland 13th of July. The movie started at 12.07 am, and it continued directly from were the part 1 had ended. It actually seemed, that the movie was skipping way too much stuff from the book. But of course, this wasn't anything to worry about, because most of the last book was already seen on the part 1, leaving only about 200-300 pages from the book to the last movie. So, as told, the movie started fast. Very soon it was the time to rob the Gringotts. The scene was very good, especially the dragon riding. This scene also proved, that the worry abut how the 3D would look was unnecessary. The 3D looked awesome, and this was a big surprise, as this film wasn't filmed in 3D, but converted to it later. The cinematography was beautiful throughout the whole movie. I paid a lot of attention to it as I study it myself.
And then it came the time for Harry to return Hogwarts. I must say, that the last battle was more than unbelievable. It was really something that we haven't seen yet in movies. It really was magic. The visual effects were astounding. And all the feeling of things to end in the book was shown very well in the movie. I must say that it was more than once or twice when I cried. The moment that many were of course waiting, was the death of Snape. In the book, it is very emotional. In the movie, it was emotional too, but the makers hadn't done it so that it would have made me cry - they kinda ruined Snape's death as they did to Dumbledore. But thank god, Snape's memories were all shown very well, and it made me really happy. And about deaths, they didn't actually show Fred's death, which was a shame too. Instead, we got to see some scenes that weren't told in the book so well - one of these scenes was Ron's and Hermione's visit to the Chamber of Secrets, which worked actually very well. It was funny too. And that reminds me of the humor the movie had. There were lots of it, and I was surprised how well it actually worked. In the moments of despair, there were lots of funny moments - Voldemort made me laugh more than once, as did McGonagall.
At last it was the time for Harry to meet Voldemort. The moment we had waited for the whole movie, and the whole movie saga. The Dark Forest scene was as in the book, and so was the moment with Harry and Dumbledore - which was great scene actually. It was bad choice from the director to show the final duel in different place than the book. As it is in the trailer already, the final moments of the battle are outside of the castle without people watching it, and not in the Great Hall with hundreds of witches and wizards looking at the duel. In the book, the duel is more like a moment when all time stops, there are only Harry and Voldemort. But in the movie, that feeling wasn't shown so well. The death of Voldemort was also a bit different than in the movie - I'm not yet sure if I liked it or not. There were no cheering people around Harry, next thing we saw was Harry walking peacefully in the Great Hall.
The ending was very similar to the book, even though Harry, Ron and Hermione didn't visit Dumbledore's painting at principal's office. 19 years later scene was as dull as it was in the book, it was actually pretty comical. And then the movie ended. It actually ended. I couldn't believe it. It was a strange moment. I watched the credits, and thought about how long time it was that I had lived with Harry. Ten years. And nothing new to read or to see anymore. Nothing new to wait from the world of Harry Potter. It made me happy and sad.
The Harry Potter saga had an ending that really was worth it.