A Brilliant ending to a great great franchise.

Rating: 9/10 (7 July 2011)

I quite luckily got the chance to see this at an early screening on July 7th.
First impressions of the film? Brilliant.
Director David Yates, who also directed the 5th, 6th and 7th films is back to direct the final. This pleases me because these 3 films are my personal favourites out of the 7 that have come out so far so I think it's fair to say that I was expecting big things from this. I'm very pleased to say that he's pulled it off ending the series in a fast paced, well written final act.
The film (in case you're wondering) picks up straight after where Part 1 ended, Voldemort (Ralph Finnes) has the most powerful wand in his possession and he's finally ready to succeed in what he tried to do over 15 years ago. He finally has the power to kill Harry Potter. I won't go into much more detail in what happens as most people will have read the book and I don't want to drop spoilers! Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson) need to seek out and destroy Voldemort's remaining Horcruxes. This is the only way that will give them a chance of stopping He Who Must Not Be Named.
Their final journey takes them to places we may not have seen recently or remembered, places such as Gringotts Bank in Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade. Along the way they encounter a variety of creatures, both friend and foe from dragons to spiders, death eaters to old friends and of course, the Dark Lord himself. Will Voldemort Succeed? Or will good trump evil? For those who haven't read the book this is your chance to find out.
What I especially love about this film and Part 1 is the direction in which they've taken, adding more cheesy lines and (for example in Part 1) that dance sequence. I feel that these small touches bring the films closer to our hearts and help us to connect with the film a lot more. Sure they leave out a lot of information that the books provide but that's the same with all film adaptations! They've got the main story down and where they've deviated from the book it has been for the best. Not everything written down on paper will translate into visually appealing footage.
Part 1 to me also felt unfinished (well it was only half the book I suppose!), I mean in the way that it was long and never seemed to climax. Sure at the end of Part 1 Voldemort gets the want he so badly seeks for and leaves then the films ends on a giant cliffhanger. Part 2 definitely adds the rest of that epicness that so many other films have towards the end. It's full of action! I definitely believe that both Part 1 and 2 are best viewed with a short as possible gap in between them. Otherwise it's like watching the first disc from one of the extended editions of The Lord of the Rings and not watching the second disc for another 6 months!
This paragraph is about the visuals and 3D. Skip to the final paragraph for final thoughts.
Visually the film is stunning from an effects point of view. From the trailer alone you can see that this film has quite a lot of action in it, crumbling buildings, hundreds of spells and lots of fire. Everything looks great, from the wand duals to the dragons it all is fantastic. Also this time around it is being showed in 3D and is the first (and (probably) last!) potter film to be shown in this way. Now I was very sceptical about this, especially since they announced that the films (originally both parts) would be converted from 2D to 3D instead of being natively filmed in 3D. I believe that what they should have done was what they did with Part 1, scrap the 3D. I'm going to say that it's not great, at times it's pretty good, but never great. For the most part it's okay. I'm going to compare it with the last blockbuster film to come out in 3D, Transformers: Dark of the Moon. The 3D effect is not even close to looking as good as what that film (shot in 3D) had. So I'm going to tell you now, 2D is the best dimension to watch this film in. Having said that if you still want to (or have to) see it in 3D by all means do, the 3D doesn't take away anything from the film, but it doesn't add much.
I will end by saying that I definitely recommend this film for everyone, especially Potter fans. The ending that many thought could easily be done wrongly has been done right. Then when you think of Part 1 and 2 as the same film I believe that they are easily the best Potter films. This truly is a fitting ending for the boy who lived.