Grab a chair, something to eat and drink, strap in, and get ready for a wild ride, keedos. This is going to be a no holds barred, knock down, drag out review of
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. Why? Simply because it was fucking fantastic. Disclaimer: If I have recollected any scenes out of order, I apologize. I'm very tired today as I'm operating on 3 hours of sleep.
It is, by far, the best movie in the series. It surpasses
Goblet of Fire with ease. And the reasons why I think this movie is so much better is because they stuck as closely to the book as possible when adapting to a movie. Sure, some scenes didn't even occur, and some were modified heavily to include more action. But they were done with a very appropriate attitude, taking in to consideration the plethora a viewers that were hellbent on seeing a great production.
Spoilers ahead, if you haven't read the books or seen the movie yet. Or both.
The opening seen is heartbreaking and breathing-taking at the same time. A dull, drab, and ghostly looking Hogwarts looms out of the fog, no fires or torches lit. A soft, lilting voice enters singing a haunting melody on open vowel tones. We see children of the school marching in rank from the grounds to the entrance of the castle in the courtyard. Above, framed in an open window, is the new Headmaster, Severus Snape. The name of the song, I later learned, turns out to be Lily's Theme on the soundtrack. /tear.
After this, the movie picks up immediately where the previous left off. Harry has finished burying Dobby and is lamenting his passing. It is at this point that Harry is very well aware that something else is hidden with in the Lestrange's vault because Bellatrix was quite fearful that the three of them had entered her vault to steal the sword of Gryffindor.
Harry must make a choice. He must decide whether to chase Horcruxes or Hallows. As much as he wants to prevent Voldemort from obtaining the Elder Wand, he knows he's already too late, and speaks with Griphook first about getting in to the Lestrange's vault for another Horcrux.
This is played out very well in the movie; Griphook's character is well-portrayed, although Harry's unwillingness to give up the sword of Gryffindor in exchange for getting the three of them in to Gringotts is not done quite well.
The producers were able to amend that though. They go to Gringotts with Hermione under the guise of Bellatrix via polyjuice potion. They really stay at Shell Cottage for a couple months before heading to the bank so as to develop a plan. This is left out of the movie, but it was handled well enough that it doesn't matter.
Watching Helena Bonham Carter go from the persona of crazy psycho bitch (Bellatrix) to polite young witch lady (Hermione) was wonderful. I may not like Carter much, but her acting was superb. All down to her tripping on her own heals to show that Hermione was very uncomfortable in the shape of the woman as well as her clothes.
Gringotts was a fantastic set of scenes. Traveling down to the vault was fun, the waterfall washing away their disguises was great and the fall was quite thrilling. What I enjoyed the most though was the Lestrange's vault. I liked how haphazardly possessions were strewn about the vault and that near the middle, on decent sized round table, was a pile of Galleons all neatly arranged in towering spires of gold. The Gemini curse on everything in the vault was executed perfectly. However, the secondary curse that they somewhat gloss over is the Flagantre curse that is also on these items which simply burns the person touching the item. It wasn't important, so I had no qualms with it.
Throughout these scenes, the score has been top notch. Alexandre Desplat is a music genius. You can hear echos of different pieces and themes from the entire series of movies randomly, yet exquisitely placed throughout the score. And these echos of events passed usually occur during extremely meaningful events in this movie.
Griphook manages to get a hold of Hufflepuff's cup before the trio can exit the vault. So he demands the sword in exchange for the cup, leaves the vault, and grabs the attention of guards that are already on their way down. The group then makes their escape, quite amazingly, via the old, blind and beaten dragon.
The coordination of this scene is excellent. Ron and Harry have no clue what to do, but Hermione has a bat-shit crazy idea, stating that it's completely insane but goes through with it anyway. She blasts away a balcony railing, runs back into the hallway they're hiding in and then runs to the balcony, launching herself on to the back of the dragon. The camera angles used for this are from the side, so you see Hermione dart past in a blur of black (still in Bellatrix's robes). I very much enjoyed this camerawork.
After escaping, they fly around a bit on the dragon, as in the books, and then leap into a lake as the dragon dips down. Here, Harry has a Voldy-fit, and it's executed with precision. You see flashes of green, of Voldemort in his rage, and that he's figured out Harry is hunting Voldemort's horcruxes.
I particularly enjoyed Harry's line after they leave the water. He's convincing them to go back to Hogwarts since one of the remaining two horcruxes are hidden here (as he just witnessed via Voldy's thoughts) as they change in to dry clothing. Hermione states this would be foolhardy without a plan. Harry promptly retorts with something similar to the following:
"Hermione, we don't have time to make a plan, and let's face it, every time we do make a plan, it all goes to hell once we get there."
It's so true, it's almost
not funny. Every book in the entire series has had them carefully planning things out to try to succeed in some way with some goal, and it usually goes to shit once they attempt executing said plan.
While they are discussing this quickly, and changing clothes, the camera is simply spinning around outside of them, making a couple revolutions until it slows and they Apparate away to Hogsmead. Their arrival sets off an alarm, and with some quick footwork, and the assistance of Aberforth Dumbledore, the group escapes and eventually re-enters Hogwarts grounds. Neville accompanies them through a passageway behind the portrait of Arianna Dumbledore, Aberforth and Albus' younger sister. The portrait was quite nicely done.
The meeting with Aberforth as a little lackluster; I was hoping for at least
some background and divulging of what happened the day Arianna was killed, but eh, that's just me being picky. Wasn't really necessary, they got the point across of Aberforth's dislike of his brother just fine.
The Room of Requirement looked excellent, as I was hoping it would. I really enjoyed Seamus' comments, as always, and thoroughly enjoyed the reaction of Harry seeing Ginny for the first time in months. The banter back and forth between Ron and Seamus was a riot. So funny.
The ensuing scenes stray drastically from the book, but I felt it was necessary to do this. The book gets fairly disconnected here (not in a bad way, it fits a novel just fine, but does not fit screen writing at all). So instead of Luna and Harry venturing to Ravenclaw tower off the bat, they are essentially all wrangled in to the great hall where Snape threatens to let the Carrow twins beat the living piss out of every single one of them until someone gives Harry up.
In a nice twist, Harry gives himself up. He comes out, spats some quite hateful things at him, which were merited at the time given that Harry knew little about Snape's past. He also says that Snape has some pretty bad security holes, as Order of the Phoenix members bust open the doors to the great hall and enter in a very super-hero-esque fashion. Snape makes a move to attack Harry, and McGonagall steps in to protect him. She lashes out with wicked fire attacks, the special effects of which were top notch.
The book somewhat reenters here and Snape does his little death eater black misty thing, and breaks through a window int he great hall, escaping. I like the death eater black poof misty thing. I really liked it when it was introduced, in contrast to the white poofy mist of the Order of the Phoenix members in
Order of the Phoenix.
McGonagall provides whatever assistance Harry requests, to which all he says is that he needs time. Voldemort speaks to them in their heads. I thought this was going to occur differently. I felt it was more of a regularly spoken voice, as though someone was standing next to you talking. But what the producers did here was make it seem as though Voldemort was invading the students minds and he whispered, sound much like a snake, that they should give up Harry Potter. Some of the girls start screaming violently. I mean, blood-curdling, red-rum, murder-victim type screams. While this is occurring all of the flames that McGonagall had just lit in the hall extinguish and a very cold, faint grey light is all that is left to illuminate the room. It was pretty effing creepy.
Pansy Parkinson makes her appearance, stating that Harry is right there, what are we waiting for! To which all of the students respond by standing next to him. A bit of comedic relief from Filtch, and McGonagall orders Filtch escort the Slytherins to the dungeons. Yaaay!
McGonagall then gives a heartwarming one liner to Harry: "It's good to see you back, Potter." /aw. She then gives the teachers and Order of the Phoenix members instructions on protecting the castle. She then, accompanied by Molly, casts the spell to awaken Hogwarts natural defenses. The stone warriors and fighters come to life and march out on to the grounds. And then McGonagall, like a giddy little school girl, turns to Molly and says:
"I've always wanted to cast that spell!"
LAWL.
Harry then rushes off to Ravenclaw tower, and Ron and Hermione take off for the Chamber of Secrets after a quick talk. This again diverges from the book a bit but not terribly so. It was handled quite well, I thought.
Luna delivers one of the best lines in the movie when Harry is attempting to clime the stairs to Ravenclaw tower. Something to the effect of: "Harry Potter, you
listen to me when I am talking to you!" She does this in the book as well, if I remember correctly. It was very funny to hear such a heated tone come from cool, calm, and collected Luna Lovegood.
She informs Harry that going to Ravenclaw tower is a waste of time (duh) because no living person knows where the diadem of Ravenclaw is. She gives him a hint, a nudge in the right direction. They go together so Luna can lead him to the Grey Lady, Ravenclaw's ghost.
The scene cuts to Hermione and Ron. Ron manages a good bit of Parsletongue to enter the Chamber again. I was worried about this scene originally and why the hell they had to show it. I know why now.
After obtaining the basilisk fang, Ron insists that Hermione destroy it. She protests, he insists. He puts the cup on the ground, and with an all might dagger-like stab, Hermione destroys the cup. Harry and Voldy both go in to fits, and then the waters of the Chamber rise in walls, and rush Ron and Hermione. They attempt to run to the back of the Chamber, and you can see the face of Voldemort in the water as it crashes down upon them.
I don't like kissing scenes in movies mainly because they're not executed properly. They look cheese, forced, or just weird. However, as Ron and Hermione stand, facing the camera in a waste-up shot, they both look to each other out of the corners of their eyes, turn slightly and then, quite literally, glom one another. It was probably one of the better on-screen kisses I had cared to see. It was very cute. With a small giggle at one another, the scene cuts away.
Harry and Luna are walking down a halway and Luna insists he talk to the Grey Lady on his own. This scene was ... kind of boring honestly. I was hoping for the story about the Bloody Baron and herself, but we didn't get that. Oh well. Nothing really noteworthy here except that the ghost special effects have been honed and look really good now.
Helena Ravenclaw, the Grey Lady, gives Harry the necessary information to destroy her mother's tiara. He tears off in search of the Room of Requirement. Hermione and Ron are using the Marauder's Map that Harry gave them, and they see Harry disappear randomly on the map. Ron immediately things Room of Requirement. They take chase.
By this time there are small scenes of the castle being blown to bits as the protective barriers the teachers and Order members put up are crumbling down. Death Eaters aplenty storm the castle as well as spiders and giants. Grawp does not make an appearance. :(
Draco's pansy ass shows up with Crabbe and someone else who must have replaced Goyle. It's the only casting change I've noticed in all the movies excluding the necessary recasting of Dumbledore due to Richard Harris' death. Draco sees Harry enter the room, and follows him in with Crabbe and Goyle in tow. Ron and Hermione eventually enter as well. Harry searches for the tiara, finds it on his own, and then eventually comes face to face with Draco and his cronies, but Draco can't muster up the courage to kill him.
Go figure.
Punk.
Hermione and Ron show up and help Harry defend himself but the tiara is blasted away. They have to climb a tower of chairs to retrieve it and in this time, Crabbe lights off his FiendFyre spell. Which proceeds to engulf the entire room quite quickly. They run away, and there's some excellent crane camera work throughout this scene as Ron, Hermione, and Harry all run for their lives. Ron falls on some broomsticks (huzzah! what luck!) and they take off for the door. Crabbe falls from a tower of shelves into the fire and dies. Wa wa. Draco and Goyle are stuck on top of a tower of stuff, and Harry insists on saving them.
They still need to get the whole CGI thing fixed for broomstick flying. Seems like a lot of the budget for this movie went elsewhere. It still looked a little campy.
They escape the room, and something that irked me occurs. Ron throws a basilisk fang to Harry, which Harry uses to stab the tiara. That's ... not right. Harry only ever destroys one Horcrux (the Diary), and the FiendFyre was supposed to have consumed the tiara. Harry does wildly toss the tiara back in to the fire in the room, so I'm guessing they did this for the non-readers to show the tiara was
really destroyed. Not just melting in a fire that will eventually go out, leaving the tiara in tact. Oh well. I think they got the point across here well enough.
Draco flees (jerk) and Harry is having another fit as Voldy spazzes out too. Ron tells Harry to look in to Voldemort now, to look where he is. It's probably one of Rupert Grint's most well delivered lines in the entire series. Harry watches, and I can't remember exactly where, but he's already figured out Nagini is a Horcrux. They see Voldy is down at a small dock. Voldy (I think at this point) talks to all the combatants again, saying that he has called off his attack and has given Harry time to bring himself forth to be dealt with, so as to prevent further deaths of his friends.
As they're leaving for the dock, they pass the great hall and this is the only details they really give on the deaths of Fred, Lupin, and Tonks. Harry sees all his dead friends and the scene is done in slow motion (I think). I'm actually starting to have trouble remembering some of this stuff now ...
I liked this scene, but I thought it was a little underdone. I was hoping Fred's death was played out, actually given a full scene, but it wasn't. Oh well.
The three of them leave the hall and venture to the docks where Voldy is talking to Snape. This is the scene I have been waiting for since the previous movie came out. This and the scene following it.
Voldemort and Snape banter back and forth about how the Elder Wand is not properly working for Voldy. There were scenes previous to this where the wand was definitely acting up on Voldemort and they showed this very well with close ups of the wand cracking and popping, almost as though it was about to break. Voldemort knows the wand doesn't rightfully belong to him because he didn't kill Dumbledore. Blah blah, Snape killed him, so Snape has to die.
Wa wa.
He doesn't use Avade Kedavra. And I, all of a sudden, realized that he doesn't do this in the book either. I actually think he cuts open Snape's neck with a knife. Rowling had to write it like this on purpose so Harry would have time to obtain Snape's memories. I've read the book 3 or 4 times now, and only just noticed this. Oh well, it worked for me.
Voldemort sts Nagini on Snape, too. He gets several fang bites and then Voldemort leaves with Nagini. Harry enters and holds the wound in Snape's neck closed long enough for Snape to say that he must "get it before it's too late". Harry immediately understands he's talking about the tear dripping from Snape's eye. With a vial, he gets a couple tears and stoppers it with his thumb. Snape tells Harry to take it to the Pensive to view it all.
Snape then delivers one of the saddest lines in the entire series:
"You have your mothers eyes."
And then dies.
o.o
I didn't think I'd cry that much because I read the books and knew what was going to happen. But no. I cried. A good bit.
With a gusty expulsion of his last breath, Snape passes. I think it's here that Harry, Ron and Hermione actually pass the great hall, and Harry then leaves on his own for Dumbledore's office. This scene was another that I was really looking forward to. Prior to Harry viewing this scene, I can remember him looking somewhat young still. Not tired or worn or old at all.
He takes out the Pensive, pours in Severus' tears, and then dives in. We see Snape's past. Lily and Snape were good friends growing up but eventually grew distant. These scenes were handled okay, not superbly, but definitely well enough for the movie. I was okay with how it was done, but I was sad they didn't show Lily telling Snape off for getting in to the Dark Arts. Again, oh well.
We see the memories of Snape and Dumbledore talking, Dumbledore arranging his murder/death via Snape because he's going to die anyway. Snape requesting Dumbledore protect Lily and her family. Most of the memories in the book are in the movie. Aside from the one thing I felt was missed, it was very well done.
It's here where we see the depth of Alan Rickman's ability to act. I've loved him in all of his movies, he's a very talented man. But in most of these movies he's shown very little emotion outside of calm, irritation, or some loosely vented frustration.
Here we see Rickman at his best. There's parts where he's begging Dumbledore for help, where he's openly weeping. And they even show him venturing in to Lily and Jame's house after Voldemort killed them. He is sitting on the floor and has Lily's corpse wrapped in his arms and he is weeping profusely, rocking back and forth.
This was pretty touching. I very much enjoyed these scenes and how each passed from one to the next with that same death eater poofy mist stuff. Very cool.
The shot of Harry coming out of the Pensive is done in slow motion. Harry has now learned he must die and that Dumbledore raised him simply to die at the precise moment necessary, at the hand of Voldemort. He had already sort of known for a while that the connection between him and Voldemort was more important that they all originally believed. But to have it confirmed by Dumbledore and Snape, a man who Harry never trusted until now when it was too late, Harry came to understand his true mortality.
As his faces rises out of the Pensive, his face looks darker, worn, tired, and even a little grizzly. It looks as though he has passed from a teenager in to manhood, and as he walks away from the Pensive and sits on the steps, you can see just how difficult of a task lies before him. He must willingly go to his death. The camera spends time staring at him from a lower floor vantage as well as simply staring at his back as he sits on the stairs.
He then leaves and meets up with Ron and Hermione, briefly but not entirely explaining why he is going to sacrifice himself. He does give them the brief instruction of "kill the Snake, then him". After a tearful hug from Hermione, he leaves. /sad day.
Harry goes to the forest and randomly pulls the snitch out of his pocket, finally understanding what the phrase "I open at the close" means. He utters, "I am ready to die" and it finally opens. Below is the Ressurection stone, with which he uses to summon the ghosts of his parents, his godfather Sirius, and his friend Remus Lupin. They all speak with him briefly and they follow him to his death.
Harry approaches Voldy, who utter his catch phrase of "The boy who lived ... come to die." With an almighty bellow of Avada Kedavra, there is an explosion of white. Out of focus, we narrow in on Harry (who is clothed, mind you) in a very ethereal place. He then sees the dying corpse of the part of Voldemort that was inside him and Dumbledore appears.
They don't talk as much or as long as they do in the book. Some of the more unnecessary comments are left out, and only the important bits are left. That's fine, I can get behind that. It's a movie, they can't talk for 20 minutes. That'd be kind of dumb. A very wonderful scene that I thoroughly enjoyed.
We come back to Voldemort lying on the ground in shock. His death eaters try to help him up but he pushes them away. Narcissa checks to see if Harry is dead, asks him if Draco is alive to which he nods his head in the affirmative, and Narcissa then turns to Voldy and says "Dead".
All the death eaters cheer. They venture to the castle, and quite like the little art on top of the chapter that begins this part of the book, Hagrid is carrying a limp Harry in his arms. The scene cuts quickly to to Neville who finds the sorting hat in the rubble of the courtyard. He holds it with him as the death eaters and Voldemort approach. More people come out of the castle, and Ginny repeatedly asks who Hagrid has in his arms. Voldemort then shouts that the great Harry Potter is dead, and in a psychotic rage, Ginny bolts forth to avenge his death.
Arthur manages to snag her, Voldemort blathers on about how he's so awesome and that they'll all put their faith in him now for those that want to join, and the others that don't will be killed. Narcissa calls for Draco to come forward, who hesitates for a
very long moment, but eventually goes to her. They promptly
leave. Voldemort keeps talking and Neville steps forward and gives a very heroic speech about how, even though their friends are dead, they're still within our hearts and they would die in vain if they were all to give up now.
In a freakish turn of events, Harry launches himself out of Hagrid's arms, people start attacking and Neville pulls Gryffindor's sword out of the sorting hat but does not yet know what to do with it. And then Voldemort realizes his wand is still not properly working for him as he is unable to hit Harry with any curses.
Harry escapes, narrowly, but Voldy catches up with Nagini in tow. Harry has a basilisk fang and is actually attempting to get at Nagini now, but Voldy notices and death eatr poofies him and Harry away from Nagini. But that was kinda dumb, since it leaves Nagini behind completely. This is fairly different from the book, but the action was necessary and works perfectly in the movie.
We see Ron and Hermione make several attempts on the snake and it's not until when they're both out of fangs that Neville comes in and saves the day. With an incredible upwards heave of Gryffindor's sword, Neville decapitates the snake, which bursts into a huge cloud of grey smoke and flakes, faces of Voldemort screaming as it disperses into the wind.
Go, Neville. It was a very bad ass scene.
We do see other members battling, as a scene interjects the plot here. Bellatrix is dueling Ginny, and she stuns her temporarily. Molly gets up in front of Ginny, and gives her one liner of the entire movie:
"NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!" And then she kills Bellatrix in a matter of seconds.
We then see Harry and Voldemort battling and dueling. This doesn't happen in the books at all, but I don't really care, it actually worked
extremely well in the movie and was quite awesome. They duke it out for several minutes, ending up back in the courtyard. Their wands connect again, which turns out to be not so important in the movie, and just as Neville chops off Nagini's head, the connection breaks and Voldemort screams in rage. He is truly mortal again and has no way of returning from death.
They handle the last strike between Harry and Voldemort decently enough for the movie. Their wands connect, one last time, and Harry's overtakes Voldemorts, the red lava line reaching The Elder Wand. It was an Expelliarmus spell (from the book) which, when it reached Voldy's wand, it pops out of his hand and flips forward, in epic slow motion, to Harry, who catches it.
And then Voldemort's own spell, pushed back on him, kills him. His skin, eyes, tongue, and teeth darken, the skin dries, flacks and begins to fly away in the breeze and he falls, a lifeless corpse, to the ground.
Rejoice and celebration follows. Aside from unfortunate deaths, the day has been saved by the boy who lived. Again.
For the non-readers, there's a small scene at the end where Harry, Ron and Hermione are walking out on the bridge among the rubble. Harry explains to the other two why he was able to overpower Voldemort and that the Elder Wand had belonged to him for several days now. Ron is all excited about it, but Harry isn't.
I'm going to stop here for a moment and use capitol letters to express my one, deeply-seated, hated issue in this movie.
Harry, while up on a broken pedestal of sorts, TAKES THE ELDER WAND IN HIS HANDS AND SNAPS IN TWO, THEN THROWS THE PIECES INTO THE CANYON BELOW.
Why does this piss me off so fucking much?! BECAUSE THEY GOT JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING ELSE RIGHT IN THE ENTIRE GOD DAMNED MOVIE BUT THEY COULDN'T TAKE FIVE FUCKING SECONDS OUT OF THE ENDING FOR HARRY TO TAKE OUT HIS BROKEN WAND, FIX IT WITH THE ELDER WAND, AND
THEN BREAK THE ELDER WAND.
That's the whole reason I wanted to write this review. While I was THOROUGHLY pissed at this, I still love this movie dearly and it was very well done. BUT THIS LAST PART PISSES ME OFF.
Moving on...
The epilogue is in the movie, thank god. And it was done alright. They looked kinda weird with the makeup and prosthetic pieces to look like they were nearly 40 years old. But, I'm glad it was included. Very glad. It was very well done.
Aside from that one bit that they really fucked up on, this movie was fantastic. I loved it. It was worth a midnight showing and my being tired as all hell today and having to go to band rehearsal at 6pm.
Go see it as soon as you can, it was awesome!
