Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 Review - OR - At the end of the day: Because Magic

Plot

Harry and his maties, still in mourning after the death of loveable fodder Dobby, continue their quest to destroy Voldemort and his ever increasing army and influence. As the Potter prophecy comes ever closer to fruition banks are raided, castles are sieged, friends are lost and the final battle will be waged.

A dimensional rift can make even the hardiest foes fall in love.

Review

To call me a cynic going into Deathly Hallows: Part 2 would be a massive understatement, like saying those terrorist folk are a little bit bad sometimes. The previous seven films were the perennial definition of the mundane for me, doing what they did well enough but not doing anything particularly special. I found them boring and self indulgent, like the producers had literally painted dollar symbols on the scenery because they could. While critics worldwide were screaming in ecstasy out of sheer juvenile excitement I found the whole carnival a bit ‘meh’. Not this time.

You should all know the story by now unless you’re particularly anarchic or Amish: following the events of Part 1, Harry and his merry men have to hunt down random junk keeping Voldemort alive – because magic – before eventually ridding the world – Britain* - of all evil but only Harry can do it. Because of a prophecy. Because magic. Its all delightfully ‘fantasy’ and presented the filmmakers with their first problem: ‘how in the name of Elphias Doge are we going to fit all of this into 1 film?’. The answer, as we have seen, was to put it into two. Two two-and-half-hour epic barnstorming adventures. Oh, no wait, that’s only true for the second.

The first thing that has to be said is that Part 2 is the Potter film we were all promised by Part 1: whereas Part 1 is literally drowning in forced angst and a ‘they’re-good-friends-but-can-they-stay-friends’ dynamic Part 2 blows stuff up in your face, whereas in Part 1 an old lady attacks Harry in Part 2 a werewolf munches a girl’s neck while giants kick feeble humans around like ragdolls, whereas in Part 1 we see practically every sweeping lake in England in Part 2 we see a dragon rip the proverbial out of Goblins while escaping out of a bank in an orgy of flame and glass. In your face. This is Potter on a scale never seen before, all balls-out action and sparkly sparkles sparkling everywhere like a fairy labour strike. It’s intense and exciting, bricks and bodies flying as Hogwarts crumbles around you, the whole thing erupting in a symphony of flame and explosions. Simply put, it’s as far displaced from the melancholic terminal sluggishness of its predecessor as it possibly can be. And we can all be thankful for that.

As well as being far and away the most action packed of the series – helped by the fact that I can’t think of much else that has ever happened in the previous films outside of Harry’s whining; “My parent’s are dead!”, we know….we know – its also one of the most dramatic and concise, almost ironically character driven in spite of how the film has been advertised. Having the shortest running time of the series is a clear benefit; director David Yates keeps the films flowing smoothly, deftly dealing with all remaining narrative strands giving the film a sense of completeness up to know bereft in the series. Whereas previous films have floundered under the weight of sub-plots and waffle, here the whole thing feels right and is a testament to Yates’ work.

It also has to be said how much higher the level of acting talent is here. One of the major let-downs of the previous film was its single focus on the holy trinity – Harry, Ron and Hermione – who, bless their cotton socks, still aren’t the greatest of acting talents. Part 2, however, pleasingly welcomes back all of the thespian flair so sorely missed previously – John Hurt as Olivander, Jason Isaacs as a broken Lucius Malfoy, Maggie Smith as an arse-kicking, flame-wielding, army leading, ultimate badass Professor McGonagal as well as many others. Particular attention must be paid to Alan Rickman’s Severus Snape whose flashback-come-character-revelation scene is the strongest in the film in spite of all the actiony action. If you’re the type prone to a good cry it’ll be here that the tears flow with Rickman delivering a perfectly nuanced performance that is surely deserving of some best supporting actor nods.

It is a massive shame then that this one of the rare occasions where it is the book that drops the ball rather than its bigger brighter brother, with the major faults of the film being born from the intrinsic failings of the book. In an easy sum up of this, there was a distinct universal sigh throughout the screening upon THAT epilogue. Not to mention the earlier supposed plot-twist in which the film punches itself in the face through travelling to some bizarre glowing netherworld train station. Because magic. Those who have read the book will know what this means and the whole thing is just eternally more disappointing on screen; the film is perfectly positioned for the poignancy of the moment and one can’t help but think that if the production team had had the guts to follow through on the controversial decision, then the whole thing would have been a more gratifying experience. Yeah the kids might have been sad, but in terms of narrative satisfaction it would have been light years ahead of the glossed sun-shiny ending on offer.

The film is also not afraid of the cheese, dolloping on thick layers with the tact of an eager clown. You’ll be getting rousing speeches, REALLY FREAKIN’ AWESOME ONE-LINERS and dramatic montages in which everyone bands together for one final battle. Until the next one. Like the rest of the films Part 2 is also teeming with plot holes like how can Voldemort, the silly snaky beastie, not know where his soul is? Or why don’t they just use the time-turner thing from Prisoner of Azkaban and kill the overlord of all-evil when he’s a dribbling baby? Or why does everything occur in Britain with the rest of the world seemingly not bothered by the impending apocalypse of doom? Or why don’t they just SHOOT HIM? But at the end of the day, as with every other film in the series, they can all be explained away with a very simple creed: because magic.

Verdict

Far and away the superlative offering from the Potter film series. It may have some shortcomings but they’re easy to overlook in what is a well crafted film, finally offering a satisfying mix of balls-out action and character driven drama, all of which comes together to provide a fitting conclusion to this behemoth of series. Besides the epilogue.

4/5

Nibble on the sparkles in the trailer:

As a final note, please follow me on Twitter: @smariman. You'll get told of updates and new posts as soon as they happen as well as the odd desperate attempt at being funny, entertaining and likeable. Such is life.

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An Introduction - OR - Screaming in the face of hypocrisy.

You think the summer is fun? This is summer!

The thing with this long God-forsaken expanse of soul-sucking emptiness that some call a ‘summer’ – not in Britain! – is that for the most part it is soul-sucking and empty. Most of the time I sit around on my withered, wrinkly, Welsh arse trying to think of more colourful ways of describing said arse before I get bored and fall asleep bellowing the age old cry that’s quickly shaping a generation – ‘Screw it.’ The difficulty is that not many words alliterate very well with ‘w’ – even ‘wrinkly’ actually starts with an ‘r’ sound, making it both semantically and biologically incorrect for those platitudinous folk who like needlessly long words – and when I started resorting to bogus terms like ‘wizard’ or ‘whipideedooda’ the whole ‘screw it’ thing seemed infinitely more enticing. Not that that’s saying much though, like choosing to get shot in the arm rather than in the leg; they're both rather unpleasant but will at the very least cure your boredom. I could make some ridiculous nonsensical stream like ‘wacky, waving, wizardy, wiggling, wagging, wife-beating, whipple-bat’ but I’m much more likely to be filled with shame rather than pride and would rather sleep where I at least have the chance of dreaming about sex. Or flying. Or anything besides the void of my bedroom.

I realize I’m not actually saying anything here and could easily bore the proverbial hind-legs off the proverbial donkey. Pro-verb-ial. Yet another needlessly long word used by people to confuse other people into thinking that person number 1 has some degree of intelligence. I would patent the technique if there wasn’t the guarantee that some menopausal half-human somewhere will get upset by it, calling it ‘discriminatory’ or ‘insulting’ or whatever other buzz word the media are bouncing about these days. The horrible, bitter, bitter, horrible truth of it all is that you can’t say anything without upsetting some idiot somewhere. Want to insult a banana? Hold on just one minute you rapscallion you; don’t want to upset those who like bananas now do you? Or someone else who has some strange psycho-sexual relationship with one and won’t stop crying should someone point out to them ITS A FRUIT. ‘Hold on a minute!’ I hear some of the more analy-retentive among you, ‘A banana IS NOT a fruit you silly person you’ which is partially true because its also a herb. But anything that tries to be two things at once should have the good grace to pick one or not exist at all. If I walk into a room with feathers rammed forcibly into my poor excuses for arms and cry “I’m a bird!” I’m more likely to be arrested than become a popular exotic export. Now I’m not saying that I’ve visited many jails but I’m pretty certain they aren’t full of slowly decomposing fruit/herb hybrid freaks piled in the corner. Vegetables yes, but that depends more on how aggressive the wardens are. I realize the comparison here is completely arbitrary and has no actual standing as an argument, but as the immortal Mr. Eminem once said I just don’t give a...fig.

I made a vow to myself to never create a blog on the grounds that 99.9% of them are so mercilessly mundane that it’s like the universe has actually broken in two, absorbing you into an infinite void comprised purely of gray carpet overlaid by the ‘Sky Remote Demonstration’ played on repeat, growing steadily louder after each play-through until it hits a frequency beyond your feeble human ears and you're left floating through a silent grey emptiness for the rest of eternity. Now that, my friends, is a sentence. But I’ve gone and made one anyway, which brings me back to the opening of this post, which I hope you’ve noticed placed you in that wonderfully vague – and equally pointless – place called ‘in media res’. You see, as I was trying to think of creative and amazing ways of describing my arse it dawned on me how splendidly empty my life is now with no job or any real prospects. So I decided to make a blog about it because if the internet has taught me anything its that if you ever have a problem then the whole bloody world wants to hear about it. Or not.

Because funny:

As a final note, please follow me on Twitter: @smariman. You'll get told of updates and new posts as soon as they happen as well as the odd desperate attempt at being funny, entertaining and likeable. Such is life.

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