Creaking, mirthless vacuum of wonder ends.

Rating: Null/10 (17 July 2011)

Some things seem beyond criticism. Flaws can be pointed out, but these are not welcomed by many.
As a fan of sci-fi and fantasy, I'm often chastised or quizzed heavily about my dislike and disinterest in the 'Harry Potter' books and films. My answer is that the books are obese, verbose tomes lacking in any turn of phrase or wonder. The film adaptations are empty confections, old rope dressed in great actors and special effects that stifle the wonder and the oxygen of true humour and peril.
Rowling is no plagiarist, but her books were always imaginative responses to the canon of British children's literature from Blyton and Tolkein through to Pratchett and LeGuin - not to mention Lucas.
In this last film, Rowling and the movie makers' huge snowball of influences has gathered so much weight that it pulls itself off course and rushing down a ravine taking all loose plot ends with it.
The film delivers what the book was - no accident that the final tome's drafting came at the time the Lord of the Rings movies were popular as wholesale set pieces are nigh on recreated here. The assault on Hogwarts could be that upon Minas Tirith. The final scene could be the parting of the ways. Dumbledore in a dream is Gandalf the White for Puddle Lane readers.
The way mythic and fantastic elements are glossed over, showcased as living, breathing monsters or magic, but with no life in them past being wall candy for the video-game- simple plot, is frustrating. Tolkein or Douglas Adams had the ability to pull out from their story as their characters drove events, explaining weird and exotic creatures as they went. Rowling drapes stock figures of trolls and dragons around her groaning wedding cake of stacked ideas and ultimately gives in to the American audiences who helped make her famous - her hero just shoots his problem. "Bang", Voldemort's dead. "Slice" a snake's dead... World of Warcraft is like Pinter in comparison.
No moral victory for Potter, certainly no satisfying victory when the defeated characters in Rowling's world are the most interesting while the victors are the blandest.
David Yates does an admirable job and some of the set pieces are phenomenal, but how can he ultimately create anything of interest in a world where Deus Ex Machina was used in ways that would lose a ten year old marks on a story grade?