harry potter reviewWe pick up right where we left off. Voldemort has broken into Dumbledore's grave and taken the Elder Wand. He lifts it into the air and sparks it like a bolt of lightning, vaguely evoking Harry's scar. In this final installment of the "Harry Potter" series -- 10 years after the first film, and 14 years after we first came to know Harry Potter -- we find ourselves drawn back to motifs, like Harry's scar, often. The film is spotted with references to moments and characters who have defined it, almost like markers leading us through the final stretch, paying homage to everything that came before.
Ollivander reminds us, as he first advised in Book One, that "the wand chooses the wizard," the giants spiders from Book Two still terrify us, and we even get to see Ron screaming like a little girl, just the way he used to before he hit puberty. All this makes it easy to warm up to this film. But what this series was always about -- and what takes up the second half of Book 7 -- is beyond these nostalgic draws. It's about losing your innocence, as you literally watch Hogwarts, your childhood school, fall to pieces. In other words, it's always been leading up to the Battle at Hogwarts, where that whole good-vs.-evil problem could be hashed out. When it comes to executing this crucial component, Book Seven falters -- to be blunt, this was not J.K. Rowling's best work.
Looking back, its final battle scene is almost a blur. Wands were flying everywhere, spells were being shouted out left and right -- it was chaotic, and readers were just trying to get to the end. After all, the most prevalent question rumbling at the time was "Will Harry die?". Clearly, emotions were running high. Reading it was like a race to the finish, more of a desperate need to find out Harry's fate before anyone spilled the beans. Closure, at that point, meant simply knowing what happened. Now, closure means fully understanding what happened. Seen in this context, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II" is a triumph of a finale, to both the film series and the entire "Harry Potter" franchise. What was muddled in the book comes into stunning focus with this final installment, and now we can really close the book on "Potter," so to speak. In part, this is because "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I" absorbed most of the slow portions of the book, especially the trio's extended stay in a tent; but it's also that the sets, the special effects, the storyline and the acting in this movie come together tightly, forming a narrative, emotional, and visual thrill.
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