You can't help but cry

Rating: 8/10 (20 June 2019)

The final movie in the 8-part film franchise is the one everyone's waiting for, and not just because it's the last one. There are so many elements that make the audience feel invigorated and validated, and so much we've been waiting ten years to finally see. Have you been waiting for Maggie Smith to show she can play with the big boys? Have you been hoping Julie Walters would blow her top? Have you been waiting for Harry to choose between Hermione, Ginny, Cho Chang, and Luna? Did your heart go out to Professor Snape in the books, and you've been anxiously awaiting the film's reproduction of his backstory through flashbacks?
Well, the great part about this movie is it has incredible special effects. As you've been expecting since the story took a darker turn, there's an epic build-up to a pretty intense battle. Ralph Fiennes is a very formidable bad guy, and as he and his cronies surround Hogwarts, Maggie Smith and the other good guys cast protection spells around the castle. It's a very ominous scene with quite an emotional feeling for the students and audience members, since we've all grown up watching the castle for the past ten years. The battle scenes themselves are quite upsetting, so be prepared if you've fallen in love with certain characters that not everyone gets a happy ending.
Finally, the moment everyone's been waiting for: Alan Rickman gets his day in the sun. His character, Professor Snape, has become a universal cult favorite, even among those who haven't read the books. A warning to those who have read the books: the page-to-screen conversion got severely cut. The seventh novel was a very emotional read, and as you immersed yourself in the pages and pages and pages of Snape's childhood and teenage years, you were probably hoping he'd get an entire movie to himself. While he doesn't get the majority of the movie's screen time, you can still love those scenes.
You can't please everyone, and J.K. Rowling received more than her fair share of criticism about the way her book series ended. If you don't end up liking the end of this movie, just remember that the books ended the same way, and Steve Kloves and the rest of Hollywood probably wanted to be faithful to the original story. There is one omission from the text that did bother me: Harry makes a speech in front of the entire school, and when he finds out he was wrong, he doesn't make another speech, as he does in the book. If you know what part I'm talking about and you loved that part of the book, it might be a good warning to know it's missing from the movie.
All in all, it's a very good adaptation of the final book, including most of the text in the last two movies. You'll cry, both out of sadness and out of heartwarming nostalgia that these kids you've connected with since you and they were ten years old are now grown ups. It's a true experience watching these movies, let alone growing up alongside them and going to the theaters to see them, so with all the history between you, it's not really possible to hold lasting grudges or express more than a little disappointment in the way the story turned out. And, of course, the very end is priceless.
Kiddy Warning: Obviously, you have control over your own children. However this one's pretty violent and upsetting for kids, I'd wait until my kids were pre-teens or older before letting them watch it.