It’s rare I put a spoiler in the headline of my reviews. Actually, I’m sure I’ve never done it before. This is important for the small bits of hate mail and tweets I get. Granted, I’m still going to get them, but I want you to know that Harry Potter is alive and well. I’ll also say that I’m clearly not a Harry Potter fan, or aficionado. I’ve seen, including this film, the first film and the previous two. And by previous two I’m not including Deathly Hallows Part 1. I honestly didn’t know it came out. Nor did I care.
So consider this a review of the last Harry Potter film from a guy who knows d**k about Harry Potter.
So going by this you have a decision to make. You could stop reading and comment on the obvious fact that this review is incredibly well-researched in every way possible. Or, you could take it with a grain of salt and read for fun. I'll be fine, either way.
I’ll start with something positive, visually, the Harry Potter movies have improved leaps and bounds from where they once were. No longer am I watching a bunch of young pipsqueaks trapped in awful dialog, surrounded by a setting seemingly ripped from a Xena: Warrior Princess episode. Director David Yates can close out the Potter series with his head high. Every spell cast and battle montage looked visually enthralling.
I’ll start with something positive, visually, the Harry Potter movies have improved leaps and bounds from where they once were. No longer am I watching a bunch of young pipsqueaks trapped in awful dialog, surrounded by a setting seemingly ripped from a Xena: Warrior Princess episode. Director David Yates can close out the Potter series with his head high. Every spell cast and battle montage looked visually enthralling.
With a movie centered around a final showdown of sorts, I feel Potter fans may actually like the film more than the divisive book. There is the equivalent of a light saber battle between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, only with wands. There are wide camera pans spanning vast imaginary fields depicting war between good and evil. The music will instruct you to enjoy it and become invested. It will work.
There are years of attachment to Harry, Hermione, Ron and even Severus. No matter what we think was the better movie or the worse, having this film being touted as Harry Potter’s end is building.
There are years of attachment to Harry, Hermione, Ron and even Severus. No matter what we think was the better movie or the worse, having this film being touted as Harry Potter’s end is building.
To what? I don’t know. There was one thing the last book is known for, that fans with a functioning frontal lobe hoped the film would take liberties with. “Can we kill Harry Potter?”
Can we succeed where books fail? After eight movies of romance, death and utter confusion -- can we deliver to this audience what it really wants? Potter fans needed to see Harry Potter’s face explode or eaten by a wild bear in a grotesque fashion. It’s how we get the largest martyrs. It's even expressed in a scene nearing the end when The Great Death Robbery occurs. However, movies are different now. It’s in a studio's best interest to extend the life of a franchise, because taking a chance on something new is too risky.
You were robbed of Potter’s death. Twice, actually. They put that hokey part in the book that shows the cast twenty years later to further rub salt in readers' wounds. Now you get to relive the last redeemable aspects of a story that hinged on the demise of one heroic character. Tragic really, Potter’s death would have made this all seem worth it for me. Not that I despise the series on some deep-seeded level, but that I admired the series for what it has always tried to accomplish.
With all the gibberish, spell-speak and warring factions and turncoats, the few Potter movies I’ve watched seemed to have a goal. For ten years, these films have been telling viewers a story of how, we children, will grow up. Some of us make good decisions. Others make detrimental decisions based purely on emotion. Some of us don’t make it. The bravest of our friend group were the most likely to be hurt.
We didn’t get that with this film. This film cheats. What this film represents is a lack of care to include new fans, and presents a status quo to the reluctant who’ve been here from the beginning.
Harry Potter isn’t dead. Expect less-than-clever attempts at making more movies from a franchise that was built on a faulty foundation. Expect this cash cow to grow large enough to bloat store shelves and eventually garbage cans. Good luck to Radcliffe maturing as an actor, Watson and others I’m not too worried about, but this kid may never move past this decade worth of stale work.
Good luck to you. If you’ve made it this far then you should know that you reading this is worth it to me. I could be grasping at straws. I’m sure there are Harry Potter book fans that despise [some of] the films and could have written a magnum opus review as to how this ball of redundant wax just didn’t tickle their fancy. This was my story. I spoiled it because this film cheated me out of the only thing I wanted out of it. I wanted Harry Potter to die. Now we have to look surprised when we see the eventual sequels and Happy Meal toys as a result.
I give Harry Potter: Deathly Hallows Part 2...
Emotionally stable and ready to mingle.The “Only thing worst than a Harry Potter movie, is a Harry Potter fan” Award