Last night at the Queensway Cinemas, Veronica had the elite pleasure of being one of the first to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 as a special guest of Cineplex. A word of warning, this review may contain spoilers, but if you’re a true fan, you’ve already read and reread the books so it shouldn’t entirely be a surprise.
It was very hard to write this review for fear of missing the essentials and not doing the movie justice. Veronica’s love affair with this series started about 10 years ago when she picked up the first book in preparation of the release of the very first movie and she can proudly say she has now stood by Harry until the very end.
In this final installment, Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermoine (Emma Watson) continue on their perilous and increasingly difficult journey of finding the last Horcruxes (pieces of Voldemort’s soul attached to objects) and destroying them. Whatever action Part 1 lacked, Part 2 more than made up for it. From the break into and eventual breaking out of Gringott’s whilst riding a fierce fire-breathing dragon, to the battle on the steps of Hogwarts, there was barely a dull moment to be had.
The trio eventually makes their way back to Hogwart’s for the penultimate battle between the Order of the Phoenix (and those who stand for all that is good) and Voldermort’s (Ralph Fiennes) Death Eaters. Despite the severity of the situation, the castle being under siege by the scourge of the Wizarding world, Professor McGonagall (the venerable Maggie Smith) still exclaimed “I’ve always wanted to use that spell!” after casting the “piertotum locomotor” spell to give life to the stone statues to protect the school. This of course elicited laughs from everyone and helped break the tension in anticipation of what was to come.
It’s quite clear that the casting was well done for all the characters, particularly that of Bellatrix Lestrange (Helena Bonham Carter), who did a perfect impersonation of Hermoine, complete with jutted jaw. And of course to Ashley’s favorite WILF, Neville Longbottom (Matthew Lewis) has grown into a hunky, Horcrux demolishing hero.
Part 2 by far is the shortest of all the movies in this epic series, with a run time of 2 hours. That being said, parts of the book that further explained Albus Dumbledore’s (Michael Gambon) tumultuous relationship with his brother Percival (Ciaran Hinds) were left out. And Severus Snape’s (The Alan Rickman) story, which encompassed an entire chapter, was whittled down to a little more than 3 minutes of screen time. Veronica wasn’t exactly disappointed in this but certainly felt that Snape and Rickman deserved more than what they were given.
In all honesty, after watching every movie (perhaps more than once), Veronica is still waiting for the onscreen chemistry between Ginny Weasley (Bonnie Wright) and Harry to happen. Their shared onscreen kiss was perfunctory at best and lacks the passion that JK Rowling had put on paper.
Director David Yates has done very well with tying up the loose ends from the previous movies and gives long time and casual fans the ending that will satisfy even the finickiest nerd.
Images courtesy of Google Images.
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