Movies: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2

It is hard to review this movie without looking back at the ten years of Harry Potter that precede it. We literally saw those little kids grow up, witnessed as their world matured with them, grew darker, more serious and far more dangerous. There is a feeling of immensity to this franchise that few others have achieved. And even though the quality of the movies was uneven, and they had many problems that could not be denied, in the end the scope of the thing seems to be worth more than its mistakes. If you were ever captured by the magic of Harry Potter, you can't not see the conclusion to the boy wizard's story.

After the painfully boring disappointment that the previous movie was, I had pretty low expectations for Part 2 of The Deathly Hallows, mingled - as always - with some hope to be proven wrong. My opinion of David Yates as a director is, shall we say, low. And when you've failed three times in a row, it's hard for people to expect much the fourth time, even if it's your last shot at getting it right.

Surprisingly though, the movie delivers. Beginning where the previous one ended - with Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) claiming the Elder Wand from Dumbledore's grave - The Deathly Hallows, Part 2 follows Harry to the end of the road, going full circle back to Hogwarts, as it should.

The movie is epic. Considering the part of the book that it covers, most of it is one gigantic climax spread into two hours, and that of course leads to problems with pacing as is Yates' wont, but even so it is epic. As usual, the script follows the novel almost to the letter, so all of the fans' favorite moments are there.

I find it pointless to go over the story (everybody knows it) or acting (as that hasn't changed in the last years). Instead, I'll just focus on how the ending itself works. And it works wonderfully. Alexandre Desplat's soundtrack is much better suited to the grand tragedy that unfolds at Hogwarts than John Williams' original music from the first movies, and even though the pacing is all over the place ("uneven" doesn't begin to do justice to the awkward moments of slowness amidst scenes of action, revelations and drama), when the key moments happen, they are always satisfying. The final confrontation between Harry and Voldemort itself is magnificent, and Snape's memories actually got me choked up - something I no longer expected from that particular series.

So, is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 the best movie in the series? Hell no! In terms of overall quality it holds no candle whatsoever to The Prizoner of Azkaban or The Goblet of Fire. But it is the final chapter, it is the end of an era, and it is epic! And you should go see it, if for some weird reason you already haven't. With all its flaws, and even knowing how much better it could have been in the right hands, it is worth the ticket money.

So yeah, mischief managed. Let's see what the next Big Thing will be.

8/10

Movies: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1

So, where did the degradation of the Harry Potter movie franchise start? The most common answer would be "after The Prisoner of Azkaban", and it would be mostly accurate. After all, Cuaron's dark vision of Hogwarts is a very high bar to compete against, especially considering how anal Rowling is about altering her books. However, truth be told, The Goblet of Fire was still a pretty decent movie, if more mundane than its predecessor. No, my friends, the mortal wound was dealt by the hiring of one David Yates. A TV director of middling talents and no vision whatsoever, he was not the bold artist that a franchise of this caliber needed, but the timid servant that Rowling wanted in her paranoia that her words of wisdom might somehow be lost in alteration.

Thus were we left with the profoundly mediocre Order of the Phoenix and Half-blood Prince. Movies with no thrill, no spirit, and even worse - ones that followed the books so precisely that they were just bad cinema. At the same time Yates seems to lack any sense of priority, and important scenes/events were consistently glossed over in favor of slow and dull minutiae which - with main cast comprised of actors with actual talent - might have presented some nice character development, but which were instead utterly pointless. I've had numerous people who hadn't read the books prior to watching the movie, tell me that The Half-blood Prince's plot just didn't make sense to them.

So, where am I going with this long introduction? Sadly, not towards a playful plot-twist. The Deathly Hallows, Part 1 is every bit as bad as its predecessor. It is slow, unimaginative, uneventful, and - nauseatingly for a fantasy movie - ultimately very, very boring. The narrative flows with the speed and elegance of a freshly castrated fetus, while characterization is practically non-existent. The latter is utterly ridiculous since - even though nothing actually happens and people just stare with empty eyes into the aether most of the time - no character actually gets enough time for any development. Even previous movies' strongest point - the support cast, comprised of Britain's finest actors - fails in The Deathly Hallows. It's just that nobody has anything interesting to perform.

The single good moment in the mind-numbing two and a half hours of this dullfest is the tale of the three brothers and Death, which is designed like a Guillermo del Toro or Dave McKean puppet vision and looks positively beautiful.

That lasts about three minutes.

No, seriously, I am not going to bother making this look like a real review. The effects were ok as usual (although rather bland, considering we're out of Hogwarts for this one), music was completely forgettable even though it was done by the amazing Alexandre Desplat, the main trio are disgusting both in terms of acting, and appearance (with the cherry going to Ron/Rupert Grint who has kept hitting the gym hard and the gym seems to have hit back...), and yada yada yada.

If you are bummed by the lack of detail in this review, just know this - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 was so catastrophically bland, boring and uninspired, that it took me a whole week to actually force myself to write even as much as I have managed. How's that for a review?

2/10