Movie Review: Harry Potter 7 (Part 2)
Movie Review: Harry Potter 7: The Deathly Hallows (Part 2)
Director: David Yates
Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Ralph Fiennes, Alan Rickman, Warwick Davis, Jason Isaacs, Helena Bonham Carter
Plot: Harry Potter (Radcliffe) is fighting Voldemort again – but this time, outside of the safety of Hogwarts school for young wizards.
Picking up right where the last flick left off (which, for me, was the most boring part of the book and probably should’ve been cut from the movie series all together), Harry finally gets a clue and starts tracking down the last Horcruxes to kill Voldemort’s soul and finish off the ugly bugger for good.
If none of that made sense to you, then you haven’t been watching the flicks or haven’t read the books – and you should skip this movie until you do.
I’m honestly not so big of a fan of the HP flicks, and I thought the final book being split into two separate flicks was a silly and unnecessary choice. It was the first book, I felt, that could actually be cut down into a single movie and you wouldn’t miss much. Just cut out all those pages of Harry, Ron, and the girl running around blindly in the woods with no direction. Sadly, they somehow turned that into the previous flick….
So, why I don’t like the movies: I don’t like the actors. Radcliffe has never sold me as Harry, even though he looks the part. The guy can’t emote. And Harry has always been the least interesting character to me anyway, so it’s just a bit disappointing all around. What’s always fascinated me about the HP books is the world JK Rowling crafted – but you kind of get a diet version of that in the flicks.
That said, HP7p2 was a decent action flick. It’s very dark, and there’s lots of wand shooting (didn’t they use to have to say stuff to make that happen?). Lots of crap blows up, lots of characters die (whether you see it happen or not…which is, sadly, how it happened in the book, too), and there’s a definite ending to the thing. Albeit, a somewhat silly one. But I won’t spoil that for you here.
The acting is as good as it has been, and the “big reveal” at the end it handled better than it was in the book, I thought. You get some understanding of the characters and a deeper appreciation for some of them – while others (cough cough “Malfoy” cough cough) continue to be handled roughly as second-hand characters.
Overall, it’s a fun ending to the series of movies that have been a part of pop culture for the better part of a decade. Ultimately I find myself wanting to see more, though. More of the world, more of the minor characters, more of what makes HP fun. But I guess that’s what the books are for, right?
