A long awaited and actually rather welcome end.

Rating: Null/10 (6 September 2011)

When we last left The Boy Who Lived, I was all in a bitchy uproar that they decided to split the final film. Warner Brothers claimed it was because there just was so much good stuff, it'd be improper for them to do otherwise. I said that was b.s. and it was all about the money. Now having seen the completed portion of Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, I can further confirm that I was the one who was right, not that it really matters now.
What I can't believe is that even in the second half of the film, it seemed like they simply didn't not know how to pace themselves correctly. Maybe they feel other things were just more important, I dunno. I could spend all the rest of this night and probably a full week trying to tell you how I would have done it differently. But to do so would give too many spoilers than I'm comfortable with. However, as one example, I would have excised so much of the mindless forest hiding out in Part One and put the sequence from Gringots from Part Two in its place. That would have given that first movie a bit more excitement -and- gave them more time to focus on the hurried events towards the end of this concluding piece of cinematic history.
Most reviewers are taking this opportunity to gush about how amazing everything's turned out with this series. They love how the whole lot of films got produced with the same cast, spanning many years with different directors, and now that all the cards have been shown, we simply have one long 8 film epic fantasy film that should be given the highest accolades and honors. But, I protest that movie critiquing doesn't work that way. No matter that this is the conclusion of a two-part film that shouldn't have been separated in the first place still stands in my book.
Yes, the battle over Hogwarts involving so many of our beloved characters is pretty darn close to perfect. With so much kinetic energy sown into this one moment, it really had to deliver and it so very much did. I felt peril. I felt a strong lurching in my chest that I was being pulled along at a rapid clip. Perhaps it was because we'd been dilly dallying around for so long. Or maybe, like Harry, I was ready for the end to come. And yet, even in the midst of moving from one grandstanding moment to the next, director David Yates continues to fail me. Many heartfelt and powerful moments become more like blink-and-you'll-miss-them after thoughts in narrative. Major things are happening to people not named Harry Potter that fans of this series care desperately for, and we've been brought all this way, often spending far too much time repeating the same mantras: isolation, sense of purpose, fate/destiny. And yet we can't give these other moments just a bit longer to spend in the forefront? No. We have to rehash it all. And I mean everything from the very beginning as Harry spends some time in a scene very reminiscent of Neo visiting with The Architect in the much maligned Matrix Reloaded. Fortunately however, this incredibly lame scene where all is revealed to the most inept audience member is counterbalanced with a lengthy sequence giving the entire history from Severus Snape's point of view. While technically a flashback, it also ends up being one of the best parts of not only this Harry Potter film, but maybe of the last three. Also of note, it seems that Daniel Radcliffe's acting ability has started to far surpass everyone around him. While most are just chewing scenery, he seems, for what may be the first time, really coming across AS Harry Potter who has experienced all of these things.
I guess what I'm saying is that Harry Potter's ending is much like a giant ship bobbing up and down on the ocean filled with many dangers, and I don't think that David Yates was the right tugboat for the job. He might of gotten us into harbor and home, but we've seriously wrecked most of the rigging, the franchise, and other boats in the process. Essentially, it's a satisfying end as the story is finally given its theatrical so long, but I think a better job could have been done and The Deathly Hallows Part 2 does little to improve on that. We haven't gone into outstanding territory again, more like, just marginally better than it was when we were back at Order of the Phoenix and it was his first try at the series.