After 10 years and seven movies, we've finally arrived: Bespectacled Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) squares off against amphibian-faced Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. It's a climax of truly epic proportions, not only for its narrative import but for the fact that it heralds the end of a beloved decade-long Warner Bros. franchise that has reaped billions (including for creator/author J.K. Rowling).
"Listen, punk, I've had it about up to here with you kids' Michael Jackson jokes."
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Directed by David Yates. Written by Steve Kloves. Based on the novel by J.K. Rowling. Starring Daniel Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Radcliffe, Ralph Fiennes, Alan Rickman, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson.
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With a pop-culture Goliath riding on its back, David Yates' adaptation of the second half of Rowling's last tome follows a Part 1 that could barely sustain itself as a stand-alone work, given that it was driven less by necessary plot fidelity than by a desire to squeeze two films' worth of box-office profits from a single book, a bottom-line decision that's also true of this entry's superfluous 3-D. And yet Part 2 is a magnificent finale for this fantasy opus, one that pays ample justice to Harry's long-in-the-making showdown with He Who Must Not Be Named. Before that cataclysmic confrontation can take place, though, Deathly Hallows must first chart Harry's attempts alongside best friends Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson) to locate a collection of remaining Horcruxes — enchanted objects that house pieces of Voldemort's soul, and whose destruction will make the Dark Lord mortally vulnerable.
These quests pit treachery and self-interest against steadfastness and sacrifice, a fundamental series conflict that's embodied by Harry and Voldemort, the Christ and Satan at the center of Rowling's coming-of-age saga. Still, the propulsive film (penned, like all but one of its predecessors, by Steve Kloves) remains interested in such religious notions of martyrdom, fate and rebirth only insofar as they reflect the story's overriding celebration of friendship as an unbreakable bond even under the greatest of strains. Thus this installment's reunion vibe, heavy on cameos and returns to familiar locales, isn't merely a concession to demanding Potterphiles, but rather a closing expression of Rowling's belief in the primacy of camaraderie and devotion in the face of annihilation.
Yates' latest boasts an almost classical attention to mood and composition, with the director allowing shots to breathe for more than five seconds at a time, conveying emotion and dynamics through careful framing and spatial arrangements, and — notwithstanding a somewhat visually subpar airborne flight from fire — imbuing his CG-heavy centerpieces with grace and majesty. As before, however, performance truly trumps spectacle, especially with regards to Alan Rickman, capping off his iconic turn as Professor Severus Snape by slowing his dialogue down to a sinister crawl, and Radcliffe, completing his portrait of Harry's transformation from wide-eyed naif to selfless adult with intense conviction and heart.
Deathly Hallows' revelations of allegiance, deaths of cherished characters and panoramas of ash-gray warfare — here highlighted by the sight of a jellyfish-membrane force field enveloping Hogwarts and a race across a chaotic battlefield — can't fully compensate for a conclusion that hinges a tad too heavily on schematic and perfunctory magic-world laws. Yet such a miscue is ultimately negligible, for in its majestic vision of the energy blasts from Harry and Voldemort's wands clashing across a school courtyard, or in its flurrying flashbacks of Snape's true relationship with murdered Albus Dumbledore (Michael Gambon), the film recognizes, with a maturity and sincerity that have become the franchise's hallmarks, that love and loyalty are most vital, powerful and real in times of true darkness.
