Four Stars
So, it's all over. At least, until they remake it in about 25 years.
Seven books, eight movies, and one gigantic pop culture phenomenon spread out over more than a decade. And now that journey's reached its end, with the final installment of the movie adaptation of the seventh book now in theaters. It's a bittersweet moment, to be sure. It's always hard to say goodbye to beloved adventures that stretched across pages and movie screens and captivate us in ways we never would have thought possible when we opened the book or sat in the theater seat for the very first time.
If you're like me, you started reading Harry Potter when as a kid, and continued to read it as you grew older, moving slowly from childhood through high school and beyond. Perhaps the most amazing thing about the series was how it didn't lose that majestic quality it had when you were first sucked into the magical world that J.K. Rowling created. Reading Harry Potter at 16 felt the same as it did when I first read them at 9 or 10, and that's quite a remarkable feat. At 16, you try very hard to fit in with the cool trends and avoid being labeled a dorky bookworm, but when it came to Harry Potter, social trends be damned.
And as much as I can't wait to see the movie (I'm writing this part beforehand, on purpose), I feel underwhelmed. I'm not as excited as I was for the first part, probably because that was the beginning of the end, and not the end itself. Now, I'm faced with the finality that's generated by knowing this grand adventure is coming to an end tonight, probably around 2:45am (Of course I'm seeing it at midnight). It's the same sense of finality that I've felt when watching the end of a great TV series, but it's a much smaller feeling than I thought it would be. Simply put, the movies don't hold their weight against the books.
All that anticipation and feelings of finality were spent on when the final book came out. That's when the adventure truly came to an end, and the movie can't match that moment when there were no more words left to read or pages left to turn.
Now I'm off to see the movie. I'll be back in a few.
Ok, I'm back! Actually, it's the next morning. There's no way I'd be coherent enough to write a review at 3:00 am so I've waited until I actually got some sleep to get things underway. How was the showing? Pretty good. There was a line stretching around the block outside of the movie theater I went to, and I saw that a lot of people were dressed up to an extent (nothing hugely extravagant from what I could tell, mostly people with wands, glasses, and scars drawn on their foreheads). I did see it in 3D, because that appeared to be the only available option when I was looking to order tickets ahead of time, and I'll talk more about the 3D elements later. It might have been a coincidence that the 3D glasses looked like Harry Potter's glasses, but somehow I doubt that.
I don't need to tell you the plot; I assume you already know that. But as a refresher, we start out in Bill and Fleur's cottage, where Harry, Ron, and Hermione are preparing to continue their search for more of Voldemort's horcruxes following Dobby's death. They, of course, go searching in Bellatrix's vault at Gringotts, and Helena Bonham Carter as Emma Watson as Hermione as Bellatrix is a delight to watch. After that, it's off to Hogwarts for a gigantic battle that takes up the last half of the movie (the movie itself runs about two hours). They fight, they fight some more, and then they fight again, all while Harry, Ron, and Hermione (and Neville! Seriously, Neville = BAMF) are running around, hunting down horcruxes and Snapes.
The story's told very well, with a few adjustments and modifications from the book here and there, and those changes didn't feel out of place. The movie started out a bit slow, as the scenes at Bill and Fleur's cottage are mostly exposition that either sets up the rest of the movie or reminds everyone of what happened in Part One. Once we get to Helena Bonham Carter as Emma Watson as Hermione as Bellatrix, however, the movie really being to kick into gear. Even when having to fit in sequences such as Harry searching for the Grey Lady, or looking into Snape's memories, or destroying Ravenclaw's diadem, whatever the hell a diadem is.
The acting's top notch, as once again Daniel Radcliffe, Alan Rickman, Matthew Lewis (Neville) and Ray Fiennes (Voldemort) are excellent. My only issue is that this movie really puts Harry at the forefront, with everyone else quite noticeably pushed to the side. The problem with this is that beloved characters such as the rest of the Weasleys, Bellatrix, Lupin, Malfoy, and others are, for the most part, merely present in the film. You see them, and maybe they have a few lines or the camera briefly focuses on them during a battle, but that's it. For example, I don't recall Mr. Weasley having a single line in the film, and Bellatrix (the actual character, not Helena Bonham Carter as Emma Watson as Hermione as Bellatrix) is seen standing by Voldemort's side, but that's about it. I don't know if there's really a fix for this, though, so I'll try to let it go.
The effects are pretty spectacular, but I'm gonna channel my inner Roger Ebert and talk about the problem with 3D. This movie didn't need it at all. If you haven't seen it yet, I'd recommend saving a few bucks and sticking with plain old 2D. It won't change the experience at all. Sure, there's a ten second sequence when the gang breaks into Gringotts that mimics a roller coaster, but that's about it. But aside from that, the 3D really adds nothing to the movie.
I guess all there's left to talk about is what this ending signifies, and what I took away from this movie. I've read a lot of people's reactions online, and saw some people in the theater shed some tears once the movie ended, and people are pretty emotional about it. Some have said this signals the end of their childhood, that they're overwhelmed by the fact that this series is finally over. As for me, I was hoping that I could muster up a bit more enthusiasm once the movie started, but I just couldn't. I felt more excitement going to see Part One, and I think that's because I wasn't sure what was going to happen in terms of where the movie would pause the story. That wasn't the case with this one. I knew exactly how the series was going to end, and I've known how it was going to end for four years.
This is different than going to see the other movies, where I knew how the movie would end, because the series itself would continue. The adventure wasn't over, merely one of the seven chapters of that adventure was over. This is different. This is it, the last chapter. And I knew exactly what was coming. Again I'll emphasize that, for me, Harry Potter truly ended for me when I finished the last book. This didn't change once John Williams' music started playing (though I felt that "The End" by The Doors might also have been appropriate to open the movie) and the Warner Brothers logo appeared on the screen. Now obviously some people feel differently, judging from my Facebook page and the emotional reactions I saw at the theater. And don't get me wrong, Part Two is a great movie that I really enjoyed. It's not only a fitting conclusion to Part One, but also a fitting conclusion to the entire movie series.
Yet that's the thing: It's the end of the movie series. I know that comparing the books and the movies when it comes to their weight in term of the Harry Potter franchise isn't quite fair, but it's precisely the reason why I'm not that emotional about the end of the movies. To me, the films serve as a companion, and aren't interchangeable with the books. Of course I'm bummed about the fact that there won't be any more movies (until they remake it, which is inevitable), because they do, in a way, keep the adventure alive. It's that thing movies have that books don't which makes us crave them. And conversely, books have a quality all their own that movies can never hope to match. But what I'm really getting at (and perhaps beating you over the head with) is that the story of Harry Potter, which is contained within the books, has been over for a while now, and there's nothing this movie can do undo that.
But if that's not the case for you, then go see the movie and pour your heart out. I'm sure you'll love it and feel that it did the book, and the series, justice. Are there changes? Yes. Is Neville Longbottom a serious ass-kicker? Yes. Is Alan Rickman a BAMF? Yes. Is Helena Bonham Carter as Emma Watson as Hermione as Bellatrix awesome? Yes. Should you see it in 3D? No. Will you cry? Maybe. What is the airspeed veloc—Ok I'll stop. The point is, go and see it and love it and cry and laugh and hold on to those two hours as much as you can. This is the big goodbye. Savor it.
Until next time, Orange Hat Guy
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