Hogwarts Kids Are True To Their School

Rating: 8/10 (20 July 2011)

Watching Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, Part 2 put me in mind of the old Beach Boys song about Be True To Your School. What these kids go through for the Alma Mater is definitely above and beyond for most of us, but all in a day's work for young wizards.
At the end of Part 1, there's been a hostile takeover at Hogwarts Academy with perennial villain Alan Rickman the new headmaster. Michael Gambon has been killed and Daniel Radcliffe as protagonist Harry Potter along with two trusty sidekicks Rupert Grint and Emma Watson are in exile and seeking a way for an academic counterrevolution. That they succeed can be told to you by any of the millions of readers of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, but with a lot of interesting plot twists in which young Radcliffe learns a lot about himself and the very definite purpose he's been put on earth for.
Though with the huge readership worldwide that the Harry Potter books enjoy, the only real criticism I can level at this or at most of the other films is that you really have to be immersed in Potter lore to know exactly what's going on. And that's bad if you missed a couple of the films when they were out as I did and still haven't made them up as yet.
J.K. Rowling ended her series and this should end the series with public acclaim intact and fan base satisfied. For myself even with some problems following it every now and then I enjoyed this and the other films of the series. Harry Potter is a real hero who doesn't use just magic, but uses his head to get out of troublesome situations. Poor Daniel Radcliffe though, he'll be lucky if he ever gets another role like this one.