Enjoyable Swan Song of a Legendary Franchise

Rating: 8/10 (15 July 2011)

Harry Potter has taken moviegoers on quite a ride ever since the original flew into theaters 10 years ago. There's been some decent moments (Sorcerer's Stone), excellent moments (Prisoner of Azkaban, Goblet of Fire), and some miserable moments (Half-Blood Prince). With the final installment, the cast and crew pulled out all the stops to try to deliver the most epic film in the entire saga. The drama, tension, and action were revved up to the maximum to compete with the final book—which was also a plethora of drama, suspense, and resolution. And while the tone still isn't as sinister as the book it's referencing, Deathly Hallows Pt. 2 remains a very entertaining and emotionally-charged finale that wraps up the saga nicely.
Just in case you haven't actually read the novel, Deathly Hallows Pt. 2 follows the events from part one as Harry and company attempt to find the essential parts to crippling the strength of He-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named to a point in which he isn't ridiculously invincible. Along the way, major sacrifices are made, Hogwarts is in major trouble, and nobody is safe. Considering how good the original source material is, Steve Kloves' biggest job was to be able to translate it all in a reasonable amount of screen time. Considering that they were willing to split the last book into two colossal films, it shouldn't be too big a problem, right? Kloves actually decided to minimize the dark tone of the final book and cut back on the amount of "grimness" that was featured in the final third of the story. Adding to that are a few small changes in terms of content and structure. Whether or not this is good depends on how much of a novel purist you are. To me the changes were not necessary, but didn't distract too much. The entire cast was back and all delivered their performances with no trouble. Let me just say: it is a pure miracle that the kids from the original grew up to become quite talented, and it's a miracle that they were able to maintain such an excellent group for all these years. No other movie franchise can ever boast such an achievement. We honestly take it for granted: Alan Rickman, Helena Bohnman Carter, Ralph Fiennes, Maggie Smith, Jim Broadbent, Emma Thompson, Gary Oldman
It is honestly the cast that makes this movie work, since they perfectly bring the literary characters to life. J.K Rowling was totally on the lucky side in terms of casting. But enough about that, let's praise the pure amount of effort put into each of these movies. The special effects, sets, background design have been top-notch all these years and did not disappoint in the final act. Every detail from the book has translated well on-screen with barely any controversy. While there wasn't much to marvel at in the first third of the movie, once the final battles at Hogwarts took center-stage, the visuals will leave you breathless.
David Yates for some odd reason became the main director of the franchise after the fifth installment—which was not as well-directed as the previous two Harry Potter movies. After his awful sixth installment, I lost faith in him. With Deathly Hallows however, he proved to me that he has learned his lesson. While the movie still paces a bit slow, unlike the last installment the slower moments were still very necessary. The backstories sprinkled throughout the film added a layer of emotion to the movie that we just didn't experience in the previous three movies combined.
That being said, the action could have been better. Deathly Hallows has clearly the most battling of any Harry Potter story/film and could have really delivered a battle to the scale of a Lord of the Rings showdown. Unfortunately despite the great special effects and gargantuan scale; the fights themselves felt a little underwhelming. David Yates wanted to give every major and minor character in the movie some screen time and their final chance to say/perform something memorable. And while this does happen, it leaves less room for the wand battles between the dark forces and our heroes. Come on now, after years of torment and years of the destruction of countless innocent lives, Harry deserves at least a 15-minute showdown with his nemesis.
Bottom Line: Deathly Hallows Pt. 2 improves over the first, definitely improves over Half-Blood Prince, and is a nice and touching finale to the franchise that the world has grown up with and loved. Prepare those tissues, because the deeper invested you are in the series and all the characters involved, then the more its going to hurt viewing the final half. Everyone did a phenomenal job translating a quite difficult novel into a watchable epic and misses the "epic" quality by a few notches. The main question now is: what are we going to do in a world without an upcoming Harry Potter piece of work?