FILM REVIEW Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

Thank you for the magic


Cinema
Rowan Gallagher

Many years ago ‘The Book People’ would come in their vans to national schools all across the country and stand on the back step of their vehicles of wonder and preach the word of Potter to the amassing children – at least that’s the way they got me.
Like any good Potter junkie, you begin to fill your veins with the magical and wonderful expanding world of witchcraft and wizardry as soon as you read the first page of The Philosopher’s Stone.
First you must set the scene. There are wizards, magic and every June an undead evil wizard tries to kill the ever present protagonist Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe). Fortunately for Harry and his comrades, Hermione (Emma Watson) and Ron (Rupert Grint), the evil protagonist, Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes), has squandered every opportunity he has had to kill the world’s favourite kid wizard. 



The plot of the final instalment – as with every Potter film prior to it – is that Harry must kill ‘He who must not be named’ (AKA Lord Voldemort) before he himself is killed. To do so Harry and his motley crew must first destroy three ‘horcruxes’, items that have a part of Voldemort’s soul instilled in them.
Continuing from Deathly Hallows Part 1 the three protagonists, now grown up, set about finding the three last horcruxes one by one, and in true Sherlock Holmes style, they figure out some cryptic clues along the way to the final, final showdown with Voldemort.
The author of the books, JK Rowling, didn’t shy away from death in the latest instalment, but those of you hoping for a darker Potter finale may be disappointed with the death of the elf Dobby in Part 1 not being topped. In truth, the death and destruction is flanked by far too many light-hearted moments that have no place in the movie other than to keep the teenie-bopper audience entertained. Ultimately, the final chapter is more ‘Batman Forever’ than ‘The Dark Knight’.
Alan Rickman delivers best performance as the franchise’s most interesting and pivotal character, Professor Serverus Snape. Despite Rickman and the rest of the spectacular cast, however, the multi-billion-dollar series has been plagued with predictable endings and obvious twists – and the final chapter is no exception. I reckon I was one of the only people in the cinema who hadn’t religiously read all the books prior to the movie, and it still wasn’t difficult to see the twists coming hours before they played out.
Many of the set pieces are quite spectacular in their own right with the assault on Gringots making the most of the 3D technology, but alas, for this reviewer, still not justifying its unnecessary implementation. The final battle, though predictable in its result, is set in the beautifully fitting location of Hogwarts. Wands in hand they battle it out once again – the classic good versus evil, Harry versus Voldemort for the final time.
It’s been a long journey. The final scenes assure us that there is no Deathly Hallows Part 3. The tale has run its course now, and barring any prequels, that’s it. No more Ministry of Magic; no more unicorns in the forbidden forest; no more yearly attacks by Voldemort. Cinema will miss this strange and wonderful phenomenon.

Rating 7 out of 10

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