The End of Harry Potter

Rating: 8/10 (24 July 2011)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (2D) (2011) Dir: David Yates ****
WARNING: This review may contain spoilers, read at your own risk.
After a decade's worth of movies, the Harry Potter series comes to a climactic and exciting end with The Deathly Hallows Part 2. Although the series has had its share of awful installments, these last two films have gotten the job done, and Potter goes out with a bang.
Now with the bulk of their journey behind them, Harry, Ron, and Hermione still have a few Horcruxes to destroy. This takes them to a highly secured wizarding bank with a dragon, and—eventually—back to Hogwarts, where the climactic battle takes place. Meanwhile, Voldemort has taken over all of wizard-England, and possibly wizard-Europe, but he still has to kill Harry if he wants to be truly unstoppable.
Director David Yates does a very interesting job with this final part of the series: instead of making an entire other film with a beginning, middle, and end, he simply makes this the third act of The Deathly Hallows. Part 1 was filled with adventure, plot, and character development; all building up to the final showdown between Harry and Voldemort. Yates does a wonderful job of not making the battle too bloated, as so many are these days, but instead focuses on Harry searching for the Horcrux that is hidden in Hogwarts. When several of the main characters inevitably die, Yates doesn't even show their deaths. Instead, he shows us their corpses laid out after the battle, with people weeping over them. Yates handles the scene especially well; it's not too melodramatic or understated, but a truly heart wrenching scene.
Ralph Fiennes really shines as Voldemort in this film. Having toned down on the flamboyancy, he has turned the character into what he was always supposed to be; sinister, unsettling, and evil. The main trio did most of their acting in the previous film, and as a result their roles are limited to emotions and plot devices, but it works. Ciaran Hinds is nice as Aberforth Dumbledore, and Alan Rickman does a wonderful job of finally giving Snape some depth during his death and flashback scene.
There are moments in the film that are less than stellar, including Ron & Hermione's kiss, the slightly awkward epilogue, and—for purists—the unexplained absence of one of Malfoy's cronies. The film could have also done more with classic characters such as Hagrid, who never really gets closure, and the "romance" between Harry & Ginny is practically absent.
Still, the movie is absorbing and entertaining, with intense battles and great special effects. The scene between Harry and Professor Dumbledore in the semi-afterlife is probably the highlight of the film. The eighth and final Harry Potter film does a good job of bringing the much-loved series to a close.
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