Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Ralph Fiennes, Michael Gambon, Helena Bonham Carter and Maggie Smith
Directed By: David Yates
Screenplay By: Steve Kloves
Based On: the Novel by J.K. Rowling
Produced By: David Heyman, David Barron and J.K. Rowling
Distributor: Warner Bros.
Rating: PG-13
Running Time: Approximately 130 minutes
Website: harrypotter.warnerbros.com
Budget: $250 million
Genre: Adventure, Drama, Fantasy
Release Date: July 15, 2011
For many children and almost as many adults, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 represents either a grand climax or the opportunity for the ultimate letdown. Deathly Hallows, the final chapter adapting author J.K. Rowling’s beloved series of fantasy novels aimed at kids and young adults, represents 10 years, billions of dollars, and a cast of young actors who have aged into their roles just as their characters have. The fact that the books have spelled out the ending for these characters years ago has done little to quell the hype and anticipation for a film series that, through its many ups and downs, has kept audiences enthralled.
Picking up where Deathly Hallows: Part 1 left off, Part 2 finds wizard-messiah Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe), along with fellow students in sorcery Hermione (Emma Watson) and Ron (Rupert Grint), still trying to defeat his nemesis, the resurrected evil known as Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes, again playing the serpentine sorcerer). With Hogwarts, their wizardry alma mater, now in the thrall of Voldemort’s servant, Snape (Alan Rickman), the three friends are left to their own devices. The only way to defeat Voldemort is through the destruction of seven “horcruxes” – repositories for the pieces of Voldemort’s soul, disguised as ordinary objects. With several horcruxes already destroyed, Harry and his allies travel to exotic locales and face supernatural obstacles in pursuit of the elusive horcruxes.
It’s a journey that inevitably leads back home, back to Hogwarts, where the student body is amassing a resistance against Snape and Voldemort’s encroaching army of evil wizards. Voldemort wants Harry dead, and he’s willing to tear the school down – and everyone in it – to do it. Harry, against a ticking clock and burdened by the prophecy of his fight against Voldemort, must find a way to defeat the evil wizard, save his friends, and stay alive in the process.
If words like “horcrux,” “diadem,” or “Hufflepuff” give you trouble in this movie, you’re not an initiate into the world of Harry Potter, and you’re quite literally walking in in the middle of the play. After seven movies, all the pieces are in place, and all that’s left is a few final revelations and confrontations. Deathly Hallows: Part 2 is a movie for the devoted, a reward for the committed, the last piece of a 10-year odyssey.
Non-fans may find themselves lost (though my geekery runs deep, I can’t really count myself among the Harry Potter faithful), but the impressive audience invested in Rowling’s elaborate world should find plenty to enjoy here. Now into their 20s, the main Potter cast has grown up and into their roles, lending their characters’ final bows an appropriate amount of gravity and grim resolve. These are children transitioning into adulthood, and the change agrees with Radcliffe, Watson and Grint.
Director David Yates, now on his fourth Harry Potter, leads his young actors and a cast of overqualified English actors – Fiennes, Rickman, Jim Broadbent, and Helena Bonham Carter, to name just a few – through special effects wonderlands and Lord of the Rings-style battle scenes. Yates doesn’t exactly have the finest directorial touch, but he guides Deathly Hallows to its inevitable conclusion with all due urgency, but unafraid to pause for breath. Of note is a lengthy flashback sequence featuring clips from the previous movies, both effective and a potent reminder of just how far this cast and these characters have come. With Deathly Hallows broken into two parts for the screen, the characters are allowed the space to react to and absorb the world around them, avoiding the overstuffed storytelling that stifled several earlier Potter films. It’s fair to call this final installment both the series’ darkest and most emotional: Death is everywhere in this movie, and Radcliffe’s Harry, scared yet resolute, is called upon to face it anyway.
The fanatical Harry Potter fan base will likely find things to criticize in Part 2, but then, that’s what a fan base does. The series as a whole has faced the challenge of adapting Rowling’s books with mixed returns from movie to movie – fealty when spontaneity was necessary, divergence when faithfulness was called for – but Deathly Hallows is no less a satisfying capstone to the series because of those problems. Harry Potter’s elaborate universe has always seemed more fit for the printed page than the constraints of film, and as such it’s an achievement that Yates, Radcliffe, and company keep Harry’s saga compelling in its final bow on film.
3 Stars
