by Spence BlazakI'll always remember the first time I read a Potter book. I was in kindergarten and I needed something to tide me over after The Hobbit, so my dad bought me a new bedtime book that had just been released. I asked what it was about, and he said there was a kid who lived under stairs. I didn't even know about the whole magic thing, I just liked the idea of a room under stairs. When I started reading it, only the second book had come out and it hadn't risen to popularity yet. Needless to say, I was like a hipster as a youngster, constantly talking about how I was reading it before you Muggles even knewwwww what it was!....it was the only thing I had going for me.
Fast forward to today. My first day where I can't look forward to any more Potter. But after seeing the new movie, I think I'm perfectly okay with that. I rarely throw around the word perfection (in fact until now it has been reserved solely for reviews of Taylor Swift albums and my opinion on Dr. Pepper), but I think I just might have to dust that word off and bring it into play just this once. Its not every day that you see the ending to one of the greatest stories ever told.
Deathly Hallows Part 2 picks up immediately where the first part left off (surprise of the century, right?). Right as the main title ends, the characters are thrust into the action of the heist of Gringott's to get one of the last few Horcruxes of Voldemort's soul. Then, they go off to the Voldemort-run Hogwarts to find the rest of the Horcruxes, save the school, and have the final battle with the Deatheaters and Voldy himself.
Finales of great franchises have bad track records, i.e. Back to the Future 3, Superman 2/3, Spiderman 3, Godfather 3, The Matrix Revolutions, Ice Age 1-3, but assure you that Deathly Hallow Part 2 joins the elite group in the upper echelon of filmdom with Toy Story 3 and The Lord of the Rings:The Return of the King. The last book is the best of the series (I love to refer to it as the Treasure Island of the new millenia) , the second half is all perfectly paced climax, and the adaptation is brilliantly done.
One of my enormous pet peeves is how people complain when things are changed from the book in an adapted movie, but when the movie is identical to the book, they complain that there was no artistic exploration. There are a few things left out, but in all honesty, they weren't vital to the furthering of the plot. The only thing left out that I particularly liked in the book was the detail when Harry goes into Snape's memories towards the end (personally, I think the chapter is the best writing that Rowling ever did), the action stops completely and the most pivotal scenes of Snape's life flash before Harry's eyes, showing him the truth about his Squidward-like Potions Professor. I really liked the extreme breakdown of the scenes in the book, but in the movie, they do it with a fast-paced montage. Yet, the more I think about it, if they had done all of the intricacies that were in the book, it might have been a buzz kill to the suspense that had been built up. The movie creators made it their own, and did a damn good job with it.
Another point of note is the visuals. The makeup and CGI is better than ever before seen in a Potter movie. You know that the goblins have reached their highest potential when they look like they just walked off the set of Troll 2. They unleashed all the stops and went out with a bang. Also, this is the best movie to see in 3D since Avatar. Haters are always hating on 3D, but my little kid like tendencies have always thought it was pretty cool most of the time. The soon-to-be-Oscar-winning direction of photography is jaw-dropping with the 3D multi-layers of the panoramic shots of a murky Hogwarts, and after seeing The Battle of Hogwarts, there is no doubt in my mind it will go down in film history next to The Battle of Middle-Earth, the final few scenes of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and The Battle of Thermopylae.
I could go on about the great things for eternity, like the privilege of seeing Britain's best actors all on one screen, the perfect pacing, and the campiness in Fiennes's Voldemort that provides perfect comic relief. Please. Just go see it. There are few movie experiences I get where I truly feel honored to have been there. I don't think I need a scale of stars this time.
4 out of 4 stars
Love it Spence!
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