Snape kills Voldemort. Voldemort kills Jesus. Hermione kills everyone.
All the jokes have been made, but there’s only one true staement: Harry Potter killed at the box office.
Here’s a movie that broken opening-day records around the world before a single showing. That’s right; freaking preorders made Harry Potter’s final film more money on day one than any other film has ever taken in. The big question is…..does The Deathly Hallows Part 2 deserve all this cash and praise?
Yeah.
Mostly.
Granted, I’m not very qualified to be an objective observer. I actually took a day off work to read the final book when it came out, but I did wipe the drool off my chin often enough to remain critical of Harry Potter as a film and not just as a final farewell to all the fanboys-and-girls.
Was there lots of action? Of course. Was the acting good? As good as the rest of them, and in three cases slightly better. Were the special effects worth it? Yes, indeed.
In case anyone stumbling on this site has lived in a small hut for the last decade and only recently got access to the internet a week after learning how to read, let me sum the film up for you.
It is the 8th movie adapting a 7 book series that details the teenage life of one Harry Potter as he and his two friends try to destroy the evil Lord Voldemort before he can take over the wizarding world and make everything dark and douchey. There ya go.
Speaking of dark and douchey, I saw this film in IMAX 3D, and it was mostly absolutely gorgeous. What stopped it from being perfect was that it looks like the 3D was done in post-production, and suffers from the same pitfalls of all the other post-production 3D films. It’s way too dark, sometimes blurry at the edges of FX and it sucks some of the color out of the film. For a movie that’s already the greyest, darkest film in the series, this is not a good thing. It wasn’t too bad for me, but like I said, I saw it in IMAX. My wife and I had fronted $31 for two tickets….it damn well better be above your average movie experience. So if you’re going to see this movie and absolutely must do it in 3D, you’d better not go to a regular screen. If there’s no IMAX around, just see it in 2D. I promise you will miss absolutely nothing.
As for the plot they of course made the necessary changes from the book to make everything flow a bit better on screen. There are no changes that are so big as to be distracting, and what additions were made work out pretty well.
For the most part the acting didn’t change at all, really. Emma Watson (Hermione), Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley) and the rest of the kids successfully demonstrated why you’ll probably never hear from them again by being just good enough to not take you out of the movie. The big three that carried every scene they were in were Alan Rickman, whose Snape did not get enough screen time for my taste, Ralph Fiennes as the deliciously evil and desperately crazy (crazily desperate?) Lord Voldemort, and Daniel Radcliff’s Harry Potter, who really seems to have taken his Broadway and not-Harry-Potter roles to heart by actually showing emotion rather than a vague sense of confusion.
Fortunately, since this movie is called Harry Freaking Potter, and Voldemort is the main villain, there is pretty much a minimum of one good actor on screen at all times.
There is not much else to talk about aside from that. The theater itself was an interesting experience, since I had never been to an IMAX before. The 3D glasses they give out are ridiculous, the theater was predictably packed and the redneck jackass behind me talked through the previews and opening credits before loudly shitting his pants during one of the quiet, emotional scenes towards the end. There are a few parts that had over half the theater in tears, and the movie left everyone satisfied.
I have, however, finally figured out why previews are so important from a movie-enjoyment perspective. Yes, they exist to try and sell future product, but they also give everyone watching enough time to settle the fuck down and shut their damn mouths before the feature film starts. Since we were watching the movie in one of the most technologically advanced settings around, there were lots of stupid exclamations of surprise and awe that people had to get out of their systems. Much better that they do it during a preview of Happy Feet 2 where baby penguins are ruining two songs that I kinda like in a 30 second span than during the emotional beginnings of a film I paid 15 freakin’ dollars to see.
One final word on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 We Love Your Money and Would Have Stretched The Final Book Into A Trilogy If We Thought We Could Get Away With It. Yes, the very ending of the book is in the movie. No, it doesn’t work. I know many of you whiny purists out there would prefer that 100% of the book be translated into the movies, but sometimes common sense must prevail. Personally, I would have been fine if they ended the film a few minutes after the final battle and called it a day, or even did some sort of during-the-credits retrospective. Instead, we are treated to the worst special effects of the film during a completely disposable coda.
Don’t worry though. If you’re going to see this, you probably already have. f you haven't seen this, my review will not sway you. You won’t be disappointed by the overall product, but don’t blind yourself to its flaws just because you love the source material. I think a movie is even better when you recognize and embrace it, warts and all, rather than pretending they don’t exist.
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