This movie does not stay loyal to the book....

Rating: Null/10 (5 November 2011)

The best way to review this movie is to criticize all the 8+ star reviews that it has been given. If anyone tells you that this movie (or that the two Deathly Hallows movies combined) stay the most loyal to the book, please ask them to submit to a drug test for their own good. This movie portrays the most important scene in the series, the final duel between Harry and Lord Voldemort, COMPLETELY different from the book. I mean folks....this is THE MOST IMPORTANT SCENE in 7 books and 8 movies....and the director decided to throw the book out the window, come up with his own version of the scene, and pretty much ruin it in the process. In all honesty, the only Oscar that this movie should be nominated for, if it existed, would be "Most Anti-Climatic Defeat Of A Major Villain". While the battle scenes at Hogwarts are barely decent (could be better but were far overdone with CGI), those scenes are still much better in the book. Another major faux pas on the part of the director was to hint at the back-story of Dumbledore throughout both of the Deathly Hallows movies, and in the Half-Blood Prince, and then never tell the actual back-story. Sorry, but this director had 5 1/2 hours across two movies and left out key portions of the story, and then proceeded to ruin the most important scene. Fans of the Harry Potter series should be severely disgusted to end the movies on this note.
And BTW, this movie is not going to get the nod or even a nomination for Best Picture just because it's the last movie...this isn't the same situation that the Lord Of The Rings series was in. You had different directors throughout the movies, and you can't just reward the last one for grins.