Saved the Best till Last

Rating: 9/10 (30 August 2011)

"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2" completes the story of Harry Potter's quest, begun in "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" and continued in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part1", to find and destroy the "Horcruxes", items in which the evil Lord Voldemort has hidden parts of his soul. Once all the Horcruxes have been destroyed, Voldemort will become mortal. Neville Longbottom, who in some of the earlier films was a minor, rather comical character, here emerges as one of Harry's key allies in the fight against Voldemort; indeed, he plays a larger role in this film than do Harry's best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger.
The earlier instalments in the "Harry Potter" film series, especially the first two directed by Chris Columbus, were closely based upon the traditional British boarding school story, Billy Bunter or Angela Brazil with magic. The tone of the series gradually darkened, until "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part1" more closely resembled something like a supernatural version of Orwell's "1984". In Part 2 another literary influence is clearly at play, namely Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" and Peter Jackson's three epic fantasy films which were based upon it. The climax of part 2 comes when Voldemort and his followers, the Death Eaters, launch an attack upon Hogwarts School, a sequence clearly influenced by the battle scenes in Jackson's "The Two Towers" and "The Return of the King". The Elder Wand- one of the three "deathly hallows" of the title- plays a similar role here to that played by the Ring of Power in "Lord of the Rings"- a magical artifact which can bring great power to its possessor, but which can also corrupt him.
This is perhaps also the most explicitly Christian film in the series. The film's moral principle is the need to fight against evil which, it is emphasised, can be something internal as well as external- something symbolised by Harry's realisation that, in a very real sense, there is a part of Lord Voldemort which lives inside him. If Ralph Fiennes's Voldemort has always been a satanic figure, Michael Gambon's Albus Dumbledore here takes on the characteristics of a benign deity. Although Dumbledore was killed at the end of the sixth film, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince", he returns here, seen not only in flashbacks to the past but also in an afterlife. Fiennes and Gambon give two of the three finest performances in this film; the third comes from the consistently excellent Alan Rickman as Severus Snape, Dumbledore's successor as headmaster of Hogwarts. In the previous films Snape was always a morally ambiguous figure; in this one the question of whether he sides with the forces of good or evil is finally answered.
When I reviewed "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part1" I commented that it felt less like a film in its own right than a very lengthy introduction to something else, and expressed the hope that Part 2 would be better. I was not disappointed in that wish. Part 2 is, in fact, in my view the best of the Potter films, generating more excitement and tension than any other entry in the series. If Potter fans are disappointed by the thought that there will not be any further instalments in the canon, they can at least console themselves with the thought that David Yates has saved the best till last. 9/10