It All Ends

Rating: 6/10 (6 February 2012)

With the evil Lord Voldemort in possession of the all-powerful Eternal Wand and his dark army in charge at Hogwarts, young wizard Harry Potter must rally his friends and find a way to defeat this monster.
I'm not aware of any other complete movie adaptations of a seven-book enclosed story, so author J.K. Rowling and the filmmakers must have had a pretty hard time coming up with a satisfactory conclusion to the riotously popular series of Harry Potter stories. I have to say I think they did pretty well. This movie is exciting and fun, but also does the weighty, mythical aspects of the story justice. It's a lot more enjoyable than its Part 1 predecessor, with much more action, plot twists, an epic battle sequence, a mystical hereafter scene and even an amusingly low-key epilogue. The key expository when Harry puts Snape's tears in the Pensieve is a bit inelegant - we suddenly get tons of information very quickly all at once - but this backstory is both tender and enjoyable (and I can also smugly say I suspected it, despite not having read any of the books). The general problem I have with this series is that as it's gone on it's become stodgier and more doom-laden; the first movie is the best one and the first three are all deliriously good fun, but this film redresses some of that balance. It's all good plotting from start to finish, it makes us care about all of the characters and whilst inevitably abridging the novel it ties the enormous bundle of story-threads up skilfully and enjoyably. Radcliffe has carried the pressure of the title role through eight movies, and his performance is particularly good here, full of heartfelt maturity, which makes all of the fantasy elements seem so real. Equally good is Rickman, whose supporting part has always been the lynchpin of the stories for me, and who just effortlessly is Professor Snape, in the way only truly great actors can completely inhabit a character. All of the key elements are top-notch - score, photography, editing, visual effects - and director Yates has corralled this enormous circus of a film series into a terrific entertainment extravaganza. Unlike my wife, I'm not really that much of a Harry Potter fan, but I love the way that Rowling and the filmmakers have imbued their work with that very best literary quality - good old-fashioned exciting storytelling, filled with imagination. If for no other reason than that, the Harry Potter books and movies are a great treasure to be savoured.