Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 - Exclusive Reviews (3 in 1)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 -  Exclusive

 Reviews 3 in 1

It's taken 10 years and nearly 20 hours of screen time for J.K. Rowling's towering fantasy saga to reach its cinematic conclusion. Yet as the final incantation is spoken and the curtain falls on the highest-grossing franchise in movie history, more than a few viewers may be left wondering: Why the rush? The series' shortest entry at 131 minutes, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2" surges ahead with tremendous urgency, superb spectacle and powerful, even overwhelming emotion, only to falter with a hasty sendoff that seems to buckle under the weight of audience expectations. Tears will be shed as fans bid farewell to Hogwarts, but catharsis remains just out of reach.

A memorable early setpiece at the wizard bank Gringotts, with priceless jewels multiplying ad infinitum in an underground vault, reps an apt visual metaphor for the Midas touch Harry Potter has demonstrated at the box office ($6 billion in worldwide receipts and counting), and will continue to show in ancillary for years to come. The new film should only benefit from its position as franchise-capper, as even casual fans will line up to witness the passing of this pop-culture milestone. Factor in 3D ticket surcharges and higher-than-usual repeat biz, and the July 15 release could well overtake the $974 million grossed by 2001's "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," the series' first and still most lucrative title.

Such enormous anticipation has saddled "Part 2" with pressures no movie should have to bear, and it should rightly be viewed and assessed as the second half of one long film (the full double feature is being presented in select theaters). Still, as director David Yates and screenwriter Steve Kloves have constructed their two-part finale to pay off in full here, it's only fair to expect this eighth chapter to stand on its own, which it does up to a point. Indeed, with its accelerated rhythm, relentless flow of incident and wizard-war endgame, "Part 2" will strike many viewers as a much more exciting, involving picture than the slower, more atmospheric "Part 1."

Here, character dynamics and expository catch-up are cast aside in favor of swift, decisive action, as Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson) hunt down the magical Horcruxes that keep Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) tethered to this world. All roads lead back to Hogwarts, no longer a whimsical boarding school but a grim stronghold for Death Eaters and Dementors.

As preparations are made for an epic clash between good and evil, Yates achieves a thrilling sense of convergence, of innumerable dramatic, thematic, romantic, emotional and musical threads from the past seven films being woven together at last: Old and new friends are well met, comeuppances are dealt out, and little-seen veterans are granted a valedictory moment in the spotlight. Former pipsqueak Neville Longbottom (Matthew Lewis) emerges as one of Hogwarts' truest heroes, and for the first time in ages, Professors McGonagall (Maggie Smith), Flitwick (Warwick Davis) and Slughorn (Jim Broadbent) are allowed to perform substantial feats of magic.

Best of all, the shifty Severus Snape (Alan Rickman) reveals his true colors at last, in a stirring, revelatory montage that calls forth more emoting from this supremely supercilious figure in five minutes than he's shown in seven films. And the film does full justice to the most profoundly moving passage in Rowling's novels, as Harry comes to grips with the inevitability of death, the enduring consolations of friendship and valor, and the mystery of what lies in the world beyond.

Through it all, Yates and Kloves take unusual and mostly shrewd liberties with Rowling's sacred text, mainly during the long, devastating siege at Hogwarts -- an extended setpiece that was always going to play better onscreen than on the page. Yates and his team of design artists and f/x wizards take strategic advantage of the castle grounds (masterfully designed by Stuart Craig) to deliver fantastically inventive sights and setpieces that, if never quite rivaling the great war films for martial splendor, nonetheless exist on a scale unlike anything the series has attempted. In the most inspired departure from the book, Voldemort feels weakened each time a Horcrux is destroyed, allowing the digitally disfigured Fiennes to introduce, rather astonishingly, a shade of vulnerability in his portrait of implacable evil.

But all good things must come to an end, and here that applies to not only the series as a whole but also the very real and very dark magic "Part 2" manages to weave in its first 90 minutes. Of all the ways to dramatize the inevitable final faceoff, the filmmakers have chosen one that, while more cinematic than the novel's version, feels unduly hastened, violates some fundamental rules of Rowling's universe, and hands the Dark Lord's pet snake rather too prominent a role. More to the point, the climax feels emotionally muted and disengaged, and its anemic execution would be forgivable only if the entire series had not been building to this moment.

While Yates' economy is admirable, this is one picture that had every right to take its time and allow viewers the courtesy of a more ceremonious and protracted farewell. Fans of long-form blockbuster fantasy may find themselves yearning for the multiple endings of Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings," which grasped the wisdom of giving the public too much rather than not enough. The significance of the titular Deathly Hallows also gets short shrift, as the tangled backstory of the late Professor Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) and his brother (a formidable Ciaran Hinds) is acknowledged but left disappointingly unexplored.

Quibbling over what's been left out has, of course, always been part of the fun and the frustration of grappling with this addictive franchise. Placed in the unenviable position of having to please everyone, producer David Heyman and Warner Bros. are to be congratulated for having gotten the big-picture essentials exactly right, delivering an eight-film cycle of remarkable integrity and continuity. By allowing infusions of fresh talent from directors like Alfonso Cuaron and Mike Newell while honoring the fidelity of Rowling's work and by casting three talented but untested young thesps alongside the biggest names in British acting, the filmmakers have created something indelible while keeping risk and reverence in judicious balance.

In keeping with its predecessors, "Part 2" delivers below-the-line work of an immaculate standard. The visual effects are so deftly and artfully handled that the magic seems almost commonplace, and Alexandre Desplat's fine score incorporates a gratifying blast of John Williams' familiar themes and, most poignantly, a mournful Nicholas Hooper composition from the sixth pic. D.p. Eduardo Serra's brooding, beautiful work gains little, however, from the underwhelming stereoscopic conversion; this is the first Potter film to be released entirely in 3D as well as 2D, and on this count, at least, one can be grateful that it will be the last.

        Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson finish a 10-year journey with “The Deathly Hallows Part 2,” directed by David Yates.

It ends well. After eight films in 10 years and a cumulative global box-office take of more than $6.3 billion, the most successful franchise in the history of movies comes to an obligatory -- and quite satisfying -- conclusion in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. Fully justifying the decision, once thought purely mercenary, of splitting J.K. Rowling's final book into two parts, this is an exciting and, to put it mildly, massively eventful finale that will grip and greatly please anyone who has been at all a fan of the series up to now. If ever there was a sure thing commercially, this stout farewell is it.

It has been an extraordinary run, really, marked by careful planning as well as very good luck. When some quick shots at the end remind how incredibly young Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson were when this all started, one marvels that they've all grown up to be as physically plausible for the roles and sufficiently talented as they have. With a parade of wonderful British actors filling exceedingly vivid parts, casting has been the series' most consistently strong suit throughout; remarkably, only one major actor, Richard Harris, died over the course of the decade, and he was undisruptively replaced by Michael Gambon (though regret still lingers that Peter O'Toole wasn't cast as Dumbledore in the first place; was it thought he wouldn't survive this long?).

After Chris Columbus launched the franchise capably but with less than dazzling flair, producer David Heyman smartly chose Alfonso Cuaron and Mike Newell to stage the next two --the best of the series artistically -- then settled on TV director David Yates for the long march to the end. Initially working in what seemed too straightforward and briskly efficient a manner, Yates has finally come into his own in this last installment, orchestrating a massive chessboard of events with impressive finesse and a stronger sense of dramatic composition than he has previously displayed.


But perhaps the key player all along has been screenwriter Steve Kloves, who made what must have been a vexing decision to put a promising directorial career on hold for more than a decade to write all but one of the Potter episodes (though confessing exhaustion and the need of a break, he later expressed regret over not adapting The Order of the Phoenix). Tricky in that so many characters, including quite a few from the past, needed to be shuffled into the dramatic deck without sacrificing forward momentum, this final chapter suggests an even greater-than-usual attention to narrative balance and refinement. Simply put, it's clear the filmmakers felt the responsibility to do this job right, and that they have.

Of course, Deathly Hallows Part 2 is all about the final confrontation between Harry and Voldemort, the ultimate showdown between good and evil, the climax the entire series has built toward from the beginning. With Voldemort wielding the coveted Elder Wand with blinding power even before the Warner Bros. logo appears onscreen, Harry, Ron and Hermione at the outset are still in the wilderness, commanded to find and destroy four remaining Horcruxes (all of which contain fractions of the Dark Lord's soul) and obliged to make a deal with disagreeable goblin Griphook (Warwick Davis) to gain access to Bellatrix Lestrange's bank vault, where one Horcrux might be hidden.

The subsequent break-in involves a wonderful charade in which Hermione disguises herself as Bellatrix (some amusing work from Helena Bonham Carter here) but also a roller-coaster ride that feels like a prototype for a theme-park attraction. This sequence also calls attention to the fact that, after an aborted effort on the previous installment, this is the first Harry Potter film to be released in 3D. Those with a purist streak will probably wish Warners had left well enough alone and not adopted the fad purely for the extra dollars, as if it needed them. Still, apart from a few isolated effects that look phonier thanks to the extra dimension, the 3D works pretty well for the many spectacular visual effects as well as with the greater sense of depth with which Yates stages many of his scenes here.

As Harry and his friends converge on Hogwarts -- now run by Snape like a gloomy fascist camp and guarded by hovering Death Eaters -- an admirably sober, melancholy mood cloaks the proceedings; Aberforth Dumbledore (Ciaran Hinds) details unsavory aspects of his family's early history and portents of what's to come reverberate as Harry and Voldemort increasingly share what's in their minds, while Harry's welcoming committee at school resembles a stalwart bunch of loyal soldiers gathered for a none-too-promising last stand. Among the many who have been recently little seen, the one who most surprisingly rises to the occasion is the largely forgotten Neville Longbottom (Matthew Lewis), whereas Harry's girlfriend Ginny (Bonnie Wright) offers entirely expected solidarity.

Similarly marginalized in recent years, Maggie Smith's wonderful Minerva McGonagall reasserts herself for this last campaign, helping to create a shield around Hogwarts that will at least temporarily delay Voldemort's army, which has converged on a cliff overlooking the school. As preparations are frantically made for the final battle, time is nonetheless found for crucial narrative trips into the past, including one final and particularly revelatory dive into the pensieve to explore the early relationships among Snape, Harry's mother and Dumbledore, as well as the murders that started it all so many years before.

Even the final wand duel between the evenly matched Harry and Voldemort has its distinct stages that reveal final layers of information. It's also nicely leavened with slashes of humor, leading to a brief coda set 19 years later that, in the way it comes full circle and reconnects with the relative innocence with which the series started, feels just right.
The squabbling of Deathly Hallows Part 1 happily a thing of the past, Ron and Hermione lend stalwart support, but the burdens of the consummation lie squarely upon Harry's shoulders and lead one to appreciate Radcliffe's accomplishment here and throughout the series; whatever quibbles and shortcomings have existed in the past, he is Harry, once and for all, and goes out on a high note. A number of departed or otherwise absented characters make brief appearances here as a means of tying things together, enabling such actors as Gary Oldman, Emma Thompson, Jim Broadbent, Timothy Spall, Miriam Margolyes, Julie Walters and others to make brief curtain calls along with their fellow great pros.

Technically, nothing has been held back. The eventual sight of Hogwarts as a crumbled ruin is striking, Eduardo Serra's cinematography outclasses what he accomplished the last time out, and some of Nick Dudman's makeup effects -- especially with the goblins and a shocking glimpse of a fetal Voldemort -- are sensational. Alexandre Desplat's score is arguably the best yet for the series, briefly incorporating echoes of John Williams' original themes while richly boosting the already heightened drama of this sendoff to such a tremendously successful series.

All that's missing is an official “The End” after the final image.

The Bottom Line

An outstanding capper to the most lucrative film franchise of all time.

Review: Final 'Harry Potter' Brings Its A-Game From Start to Finish

 With the million awful, tacky, shrill, stupid, condescending, tasteless, “Eragon”-y things that could have gone wrong over the 10 years and eight movies that brought J.K. Rowling’s mega-popular Harry Potter series to the big screen, it’s practically a statistical anomaly that the final entry, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2,” brings its A-game from start to finish.

It’s something akin to finding a herd of eight adorable, cotton-candy-pooping unicorns.

This far into the story, screenwriter Steve Kloves (who adapted all but one of Rowling’s seven Potter novels) doesn’t have to explain the stakes (Voldemort and his Death Eaters are poised to take over the magical world and destroy Muggle-kind) or the characters or the plot mechanics.
“Deathly Hallows, Part 2” even opens with long, silent shots of Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) and Snape (Alan Rickman) staring significantly out different windows, and after the introduction of so many characters and places and magical devices over the years, the actors and the audience alike have earned a bit of silence.

But there’s little time for introspection.
Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Hermione (Emma Watson) and Ron (Rupert Grint) are still out to find and destroy the various horcruxes that contain pieces of Voldemort’s soul, but thankfully, the endless, gloomy-teen campout sequences of “Deathly Hallows, Part 1” are behind us. Their quest takes them everywhere from the cavernous and deadly vaults at Gringott’s bank to the halls of Hogwarts.
This once-cheery castle, perhaps the movies’ ultimate British boarding school, has the somber feel of an occupied fort. The forces of darkness are in charge, and they’ve cast a pall over everything, even the usually indefatigable Professor McGonagall (Maggie Smith).

In other words, things have gotten way, way darker since “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” back in 2001. Major characters have been dying ever since Robert Pattinson got snuffed in “Goblet of Fire,” but the body count has never been as high as it is this time. Parents whose young children haven’t already read the books and aren't prepared for what’s coming might think twice about this one.

As if to give fans one last look at every corner of this world, Kloves’ script calls back almost every element of the wizarding world we’ve come to know: From Gringott’s to Olivander’s wand shop to the Honeydews candy store to the Room of Requirement, places that have played key roles in the plot all come up yet again. (Even the Sorting Hat from the first film makes another appearance.)
Similarly, there’s a seemingly endless parade of movie stars (Smith, Fiennes, Helena Bonham Carter, Emma Thompson, Jim Broadbent) and Potter stars (particularly Matthew Lewis’ Neville Longbottom) on display as well.

If there’s one substantial flaw to the film, it’s that this cavalcade of people and places and objects can barely fit in the 130-minute running time. Looking forward to the emotional culmination of the courtship between Harry and Ginny Weasley (Bonnie Wright)? Well, tough.



 Characters in the movie are sacrificing themselves for the greater good, and characters are getting sacrificed from the script for more daily showtimes.
Trying to keep tabs on, say, the older Weasleys or the Hogwarts faculty is like trying to spot your favorite singer getting one line during an Aretha Franklin tribute at the Grammys.

As such, the actors here have to make the most of their fleeting moments, and they consistently do. What the post-Potter careers of Radcliffe, Watson and Grint will be like is anyone’s guess, but at this point they know how to take these particular characters to the bridge without breaking a sweat. Alan Rickman gets to show us many sides of Snape, and he’s as compelling as always, even when the flashbacks use some freaky age-erasing special effects that leave his face looking odd.
Bonham Carter’s Bellatrix Lestrange is as goth-gorgon as ever, but she has some fun with some early scenes in which she gets to portray the Hermione-on-polyjuice-potion version of the character. And during the film’s big climactic battle, Smith and Julie Walters get some tasty moments that make their relatively small roles over the course of the series worthwhile.

Thankfully, there’s more to “Deathly Hallows, Part 2” than just the simple tying-up of loose ends. Even after everything he’s endured in his years at Hogwart’s, Harry continues to learn secrets about his past, including a heretofore-unrevealed backstory of a certain character that makes for an interesting twist.
If you have no affection for these British teen wizards, of course, this is not the movie that’s going to make you change your mind. But if you’ve been a devoted follower of the Potter saga in print and at the movies, you’ll come away from this final chapter with a feeling of catharsis and, perhaps, a slightly damp handkerchief.