Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II (David Yates, 2011): UK/USA

Reviewed by Byron Potau. Viewed at Edwards Cinemas, Santa Maria, CA.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II

As the Harry Potter series came to a close early Friday at midnight Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II needed to accomplish two things. One, it needed to rebound from Deathly Hallows Part I, arguably the series weakest film since Chris Columbus was in the director’s chair, and two, it needed to live up to the hype of ending one of cinema’s most successful franchises. The second task is nearly impossible given the extraordinary expectations, but it at least accomplished its first goal.

Continuing the search for horcruxes, Harry, Ron, and Hermione get themselves into dangerous situations only to escape them fairly easily. When one of the remaining horcruxes is found to be hidden at Hogwarts Harry must return there. Severis Snape (Alan Rickman) is now in charge, but he is easily dispatched by a brief student and staff rebellion that supports Harry.

Meanwhile, Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) grows weaker with every horcrux they destroy and can’t seem to get the recently found and powerful elder wand to fully obey him. Nevertheless, he stages a full attack on Hogwarts school to try to get to Harry while the school does its best to ward off the attack to give Harry enough time find and destroy the horcrux.

There is much more action this time around than in Part I, and a few nice plot twists that will please the audience, however, the fights are a bit predictable as you might expect, and boring. How often can they really make one wizard casting a spell and the other wizard blocking it interesting? Also, why is it that wizards seem so impossible to kill at times, and yet, at other times are so conveniently easy to kill? Nevertheless, there are a few important deaths on both sides so as not to make it seem like all fluff.

Neville (Matthew Lewis) also plays a big part in this one which would be fine, but director David Yates gives him such a cheesy buildup that we know when his contributions are coming and what they will be.

Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint, along with the rest of the cast, are perfectly at home in their roles. The only thing is that the large supporting cast is largely absent hardly being given the chance to shine in this final installment. Maggie Smith in particular is relegated to a typical Hollywood “I’ve always wanted to cast that spell” line.

The sets, cinematography, and special effects have maintained the high quality of the last few films so while it is incredible work that certainly adds to the film’s visual brilliance it was what we have come to expect.

As for closing out the series, the film does an adequate job. There will certainly be a lot of fans disappointed feeling this or that could have been done better, but it was a near impossible task to begin with. I knew it would disappoint on some level and I would be left with an empty feeling but it succeeds more often than it fails and I commend the film more for what it did do rather than what it didn’t do.

It’s easy to complain that it could have been better, but you could tell there was a lot more effort in these films than in many of the franchises Hollywood has going these days. So it’s goodbye to a great series that has given us years of entertainment leaving us satisfied more often than not. Now bring on the DVD collection with hours of never before seen extras!

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Published:
07.15.11 / 11am
Category:
Films