HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS, PART TWO (2011)


Originally published in Cinema Knife Fight, July 17, 2011

OK, I was going to start this review with something Entertainment Weekly-ish, talking about how 10 years ago the movies derived from J.K.Rowling’s HARRY POTTER books took over the big screen, with Chris Columbus at the helm to start, and David Yates taking the sweet, almost-innocent tale of the early books and expertly crafting Rowling’s darker, coming-of-age finale with his two-part DEATHLY HALLOWS release, but I won’t. Well, OK, I just did.

Let’s get right to the main question: is the final act of the HARRY POTTER movie series worthy of the novels which have brought people of all ages back to reading books? Let’s get it over with now and say: in this reviewer’s opinion, HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS, PART 2, like PART 1, was a perfect big screen adaptation of the final Rowling novel. Seriously, it couldn’t have been made any more loyal to the book. In fact, it’s better. Yates, and long-time screenwriter Steve Kloves, actually managed to improve upon the novel in a couple of places.

That is not to say that J.K. Rowling’s latter three novels in the Potter series were perfect. They weren’t. The fifth and sixth books, HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX and HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE were long, ambitious novels, stymied by the introduction of too many new characters and multiple layers of back-stories in order to build up to the final novel which, thankfully, was tighter and full of more coherent action scenes, at least in the second half. Yates was at the helm for the final three movies adaptations, and the first two films neatly and adroitly boiled their written counterparts down to a more decipherable storyline.

DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 2 picks up where PART 1 left off, with Harry at the beach, mourning the death of his beloved Elf friend Dobbie, and Voldemort having broken into the late Dumbledore’s crypt to steal the Elder Wand, one of the fabled “deathly hallows” and the most powerful wand in the world. Like the other films, there is no recap at the beginning. The filmmakers leave it to their loyal viewers to be aware of the story to date before coming into the theater.

Right away, everything goes very, very fast. Unlike PART 1, which moves along at a slower, road-trip pace, and deliberately so, while the three main characters search for the hidden pieces of Voldemort’s soul (called Horcruxes) and destroy about half of them, the second part of the story is a whirlwind of action. Our three heroes break into Gringott’s Bank to steal a Horcrux and deal with an enchanted pile of replicating kitchenware and a fire-breathing dragon. Soon after comes their eventual return to Hogwart’s, where the remainder of the film takes place. It’s HIGH NOON, metaphorically speaking, at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, as our heroes take control of the establishment and face off against Voldemort’s army of black clad Death Eaters.

This film is pretty much scene-by-scene, line-by-line, the second half of the novel. Certain parts are condensed—for example, very little of the story of Aberforth Dumbledore, mysterious brother of former headmaster Albus is covered. Like the novel, I didn’t really see the point of having a brother appear so late in the book except to explain that he’d been keeping an eye on them and helping out when he could. The novel went into great detail (too much, I think) about what happened with the headmaster as a child, the death of his sister and estrangement from his brother. Thankfully, the movie touched on this just a little and moved on.
I can’t believe I’m about to say this next point because, like most moviegoers, I’ve grown tired of paying extra cash for pointless 3D effects, since most live-action 3D movies coming out are 2D’s converted over. In previous 3D knock-offs, the visuals usually aren’t that good, and definitely not worth paying extra for. Last year, DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 1 came out only in 2D and it was visually stunning anyway.

Not so, PART 2. I watched the 2D version, figuring why bother with the 3D, right? But PART 2 seems to have been shot in 3D, ala AVATAR (2009). As such, watching the 2D felt like the projection camera was never quite in focus. Granted, it could have been that the projectionist at the Worcester Showcase was dozing and the projector was out of focus, but watching the movie, it just looked wrong somehow. Like watching a 3D film without the glasses. They cleaned it up best as they could, and it still was a stunning piece of movie-making to watch, but I kept thinking, “This probably looks amazing in 3D.”

(I don’t recommend anyone pay for the 3D. Ever again. But… unfortunately the 2D version doesn’t look very good, so since this is the last Potter film, may as well go see the 3D version, but pay for the 2D show and sneak your glasses from a previous rip-off showing in with you, then sneak into one of the 3D screenings. You’ll thank me later.)

I mentioned above that Yates and Kloves improved on a couple of things. The first I mentioned above, trimming the fat out of the flashback storylines which weren’t needed for the movie (except for one involving Snape, which was done very well, at least it was done right out of the book. I still have issue with it, but I can’t say what without sticking in a major spoiler here, so I won’t). The second, and I think most important: the climactic battle between Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) and Voldermort (Ralph Fiennes). In the book, at the end, it came down them having another wand-off much like the one at the end of GOBLET OF FIRE(2005). Although everything leading up to this moment in the novel was great, the final battle was less than climactic. Not so the movie: as you probably surmised seeing the previews, they really stretched out the fight scenes between these two, even to the point of having them grapple with each other physically over the edge of a bridge.

There is a climactic bit between a character that’ll remain unnamed in this review, and the evil snake Nagini, which I thought was better in the novel. It was done very well in the movie—don’t get me wrong—but I was looking forward to this particular scene from the book and they’d changed it for dramatic purposes. In the end, the same thing happens, it’s just dragged out a bit to coincide with Harry and Voldermort’s battle. If you’ve read the final Rowling book, you’ll know what I’m talking about. If not, you won’t and that’s OK. Just watch the film. It’s cool anyway.
Finally, as expected, there is a lot of Potter-ish, killer-spell violence in the movie. More so than in previous films, even PART 1. You see characters die, or see them dead after the fact (some of them quasi-main characters but not primary enough to mentally scar any of the kiddies watching). Hogwarts gets trashed. Ron and Hermoine (Rupert Grint and Emma Watson) finally kiss, and director Yates takes this way too far, by having a very intense and graphic sex scene following… no, no, I’m only kidding. But it’s a decent screen kiss, and kind of funny.

In the end, if you like Harry Potter, either the books or the films, I think you’ll enjoy this final chapter a lot. If for no other reason than the brief, five minute epilogue at the end. I was happy they included this scene, which was taken right out of the ending of the book. After all of the violence and dark turns the books and films have taken, this was a great way of rekindling the innocence of the first novel. Of starting over.

And that’s what I’ll leave you with. When you read the first book, or saw the first movie, it was magical, musical and fun. Young Radcliffe’s Harry Potter was wide-eyed and wonderstruck, as were his legions of fans. But the adult characters were furrow-browed, hardened people who looked like they’d just been through a war. They had, eleven years earlier, with Voldemort at the peak of his power, a war which killed Harry’s parents. Throughout the series, even the early books, the darkness of that earlier time was woven into every adult’s dialogue. Now, as PART 2 closes, as the children are excited and nervous to begin school, you see in the eyes of the adults what was in the eyes of those older character seven books earlier.

My daughters were going away on vacation with their mom, so I couldn’t take them. I promised I’d bring them when they got back, as I’ve done to every film since it started. My son, too. He didn’t want to come this time, or see PART 1 or even read the last book. That’s fine. I think he would have liked the final movie, though. Like life, everything comes to an end – the good and the bad – in some way, at some time. Rowling’s books were loved and enjoyed by so many, including our household, but there’s always an ending. And a new beginning. Maybe we’re done with Rowling and her world of HARRY POTTER. If so, that’s fine. She did well by it, and so did the filmmakers. HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS, PARTS 1 and 2 are the epitome of how to take a popular book and make it exactly as it should be made, with tweaks here and there and scripting touch-ups. Overall, it is a faithful adaptation of a story that has come to an exciting and celebratory ending for us all.

On to the net Big Adventure, wherever and whatever that will be… OK! Someone tell L.L. Soares to stop making faces at me. I see you behind that chair. You promised to stay out of the room while I wrote this review. Out! Out!

Muggle….