Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II: Movie Review

"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II"/Rated PG-13/Warner Bros./Dir. by David Yates/130 min.

WARNING: There be spoilers ahead. If you haven't read the book "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows", you may not want to continue.

After 11 years and 8 films, the Harry Potter movie saga is at an end. While every installment has brought new mysteries to light and provided ample character development, they have all been a prelude to a battle. So, the question is, does the movie get it right. Director David Yates has been, for my money, the best thing that could've happened to this series, delivering movies that are faithful, yet fresh and creative. Thankfully, he is at the helm here again and he gets is almost perfect. It's a small "almost", but I'll get to that in a moment.

More than any of the other films, this is an action movie. It's a war film. There isn't much in the line of character development because the characters have been developed over the course of the previous chapters (with a couple key exceptions). It's pretty much a race to the battle for Hogwarts, but it's a thrilling race. The story begins exactly where Part 1 ended, with Voldemort holding the mythical Elder Wand, one of the three "Deathly Hallows" (magical objects that make their holder a master over death) and Harry is still looking for and destroying horcruxes (objects that hold a small piece of Voldemort's soul). Harry's search brings him back to Gringotts bank, but this time it's not to make a withdrawl, it's a bank heist.

Among the many wonderful performances in this film, one of the most delightful is Helena Bonham Carter, who has already shown us that she can be totally crazy as Bellatrix Lestrange, but in this scene is playing Hermione morphed into Bellatrix thanks to a polyjuice potion. Hermione's shyness and awkward walk in high heels are spot on.

After a bout with self-replicating gold and a ride on a giant dragon, the film moves us quickly back to Hogwarts, but it isn't the magical place that Harry once considered a home away from home. It's a darkened police state, with students being marched and those who dared stand up for what's right are beaten into submission. It's on this dark canvas that the battle for the future of wizarding kind happens and it's here where the movie's greatest and (few) weakest moments occur.

Let me preface this with a note about the running time. Deathly Hallows Part II is the shortest of all the Harry Potter movies, where it really should have been the longest. The final battle is both glorious and hurried. While I appreciate the idea of giving the audience a feel for the havoc of war, there are moments that could have been given a little more weight. For example, Molly Weasley (the wonderful Julie Walters) and the aforementioned Beatrix Lestrange have an epic battle in the book after Beatrix attempts to kill Molly's daughter. It's a pivotal moment in the book and easily one of the most triumphant scenes in the series. However, in the film it's boiled down to about 30 seconds, with momma bear Weasley having her Ripley from "Aliens" moment and ending as quickly as it started. Since the whole series has been leading to these types of moments, I would've gladly sat for another 20 minutes just to enjoy the grandeur of these scenes a little more.

This is a small complaint. The number of scenes that are pitch perfect far outweigh these scenes and, frankly, it's a great compliment to the books and the movie that the only complaint I have is that I wanted more. The highlight for me was the scene where Snape's motivations are finally revealed. It's one of the finest performances I've ever seen from Alan Rickman and that's truly saying something.

Overall, I loved it. Neville was great, Luna was great (plus it was implied that they become a couple, which was something I always wanted from the books), McGongall was AWESOME! It was a very satisfying ending to one of the best fantasy series in the history of film. That's not hyperbole, it's fact.

Grade: A