And here, at last, is the end. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 brings to a close the ambitious and beloved Harry Potter franchise, the big-screen incarnation of J. K. Rowling’s unimaginably popular bestselling books. The Potter films have become a cultural phenomenon unlike anything else, a strange hybrid of book and screen and richly realized world and fan affection. As cultural and social happenings, they are amazing. As films, they have mostly been less so. The refrain cannot be avoided here: No, this movie is not as “good,” not as rich, not as moving as its printed source. No Potter movie has been. But Deathly Hallows 2 does manage to work its own kind of movie magic. The series goes out on a high note, with a film which is appropriately exciting and involving, and even a little cathartic.
That this is “part 2” is no joke. The film literally takes up where its predecessor left off. The villainous Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes, still sans nose) has acquired the Elder Wand, the most powerful tool known to wizards, and is intent on using it to track down and kill Harry Potter. Meanwhile, Harry (Daniel Radcliffe, now old enough for action-hero stubble) and his trusty pals Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) and Hermione Granger (Emma Watson) are racing to discover and destroy the magical horcruxes, enchanted objects in which Voldemort has stashed bits of his soul. If all the horcruxes are destroyed, Voldemort has no protection against ordinary death, which the good-guy wizards would like him to experience. Harry, however, is short on allies: the Voldemort-resisting Order of the Phoenix has been decimated, and his old haven, Hogwarts School, is in the icy grip of the distasteful Severus Snape (Alan Rickman). The plot is thus a fairly straightforward quest: can Harry and his friends discover and remove the horcruxes before Voldemort finds them?
How the quest unfolds is old news to fans of the books, and is best left unrevealed to those few moviegoers who have not read them. It is to the filmmakers’ credit that Deathly Hallows 2 gets in the necessary information to make the quest understandable while still keeping the pace taut enough to get the pulse racing. Screenwriter Steve Kloves (all Potter movies but one) and director David Yates (the last three films) know their way around this material by now. Gone are the long slow stretches of doubt-filled wandering that plagued Deathly Hallows 1. This is an action movie through and through, with set pieces to rival anything served up by Mr. Bond or the proto-Avengers lately. A roller-coaster ride through the depths of a magical bank and the final battle in Hogwarts are particularly well-done. As always, the Potter films work best when they diverge from the books a little, and Deathly Hallows 2 does so in a few well-timed places – most notably Harry’s final showdown with Voldemort. The speech Rowling gives Harry at that point makes for great reading, but would be a snoozer onscreen; the more kinetic approach here is the right one for a film.
All the usual Potter gang of actors is here again, including some we haven’t seen in a while. Radcliffe, Grint, and Watson have all literally grown into their roles, and they are in fine form here. Of course they outstripped their characters in age a long time ago, and a refreshing aspect of the movies’ graduation to full-action mode is that Radcliffe, et. al. can drop the pretense of being schoolkids in any way. These are young adults on a serious mission, each with their strengths – and that goes for the actors as well as their characters. I doubt any of them are destined to be acting heavyweights – but they know these people by now, and gamely see through their fates to the end. Stop and consider how lucky the franchise has been to be able to keep all three leads for eight films over so many years.
The films have also been lucky in the supporting starpower they’ve attracted. Almost all of the high-watt actors who’ve been on board get curtain calls here: Fiennes, Maggie Smith, Robbie Coltrane, Jim Broadbent, Gary Oldman, David Thewlis, Helena Bonham Carter, John Hurt, Jason Isaacs, Emma Thompson, Michael Gambon, Julie Walters, and Warwick Davis (who actually gets two). The movie even finds space for two newcomers: Kelly Macdonald as a ghost with special secrets, and a somewhat underused (naturally) Ciaran Hinds as a different Dumbledore. Deathly Hallows 2 lets each of these players have a little final fun with their characters, whether it’s Fiennes and Bonham Carter chewing the scenery as the baddies, Smith getting to show real glee at doing magic, or some well-placed profanity from Walters as a Weasley who’s had enough. The film also explains at last why an actor of Rickman’s talent was hired apparently to do little more than dress in Puritan drag and clip his sentences for eight films. Apparently.
Much has been made of the increasing darkness of the last few Potter films, and the same can be said here. Especially in the final battles, the palette is so drained as to be almost black and white (interesting in light of the finality of the good-evil battle), and the gloom that hangs over the picture helps increase the sense of urgency. Dark, too, are the events. Even before some beloved characters meet their book-ordained ends, the body count is awfully high for what began as a kids’-movie franchise. Yet if Deathly Hallows 2 doesn’t skimp on the violence and tragedy, it also doesn’t skimp on the deeper themes of its source material. That love, loyalty, and selflessness will always win over their opposites has been a motif of these movies from the beginning, and that outlook comes to full fruition here. Deathly Hallows 2 is a grown-up Potter film, but it still has a pure heart. Here, at least, fidelity to the books is an asset. The characters, good and bad, earn their fates, and we root for Harry and company not just because the plot demands it, but because of the choices they make. The resolutions here are genuinely satisfying.
The two best things that can be said about Deathly Hallows 2 are that it gets in what is necessary from its epic source, and that it is a decently entertaining movie in its own right. Mr. Potter has not always fared as well against film adaptation as he has against Voldemort’s minions, but in Deathly Hallows 2 he holds his own. Not only is this a fine farewell to the whole Potter gang, but it is a nicely-crafted couple of hours of film. It gives us a little of everything we love about Harry Potter films: excitement, action, mystery, humor, love, wonder, and, yes, magic. Dare I say it left me wanting a little more? That in itself isn’t bad for the eighth movie in a series. So long, Harry Potter; as with any good hero, it’s great to see you go out on top.
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