Review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2

"But what we found out is that each one of us is a hero… and a brain… and a joker. Sincerely yours, the Horcrux Club."

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
Directed by: David Yates
Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Ralph Fiennes
Released by: Roadshow

So, it’s finally over. Part 1 seems to have contained most of the plot exposition about what the ‘deathly hallows’ are and why Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) needs them to defeat Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes), leaving all the thrilling action and emotional punch for this second instalment in JK Rowling’s final boy wizard chronicle.

It begins abruptly as you-know-who desecrates the grave of a rather well-preserved Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) to retrieve the powerful Elder Wand – one of the titular magical artefacts. Meanwhile, gloom douses our heroes; Harry has just buried Dobby the House Elf, who gave up his life in part 1 amid much sobbing in cinemas.

There’s something inescapably silly about wands, potions, cod-Latin incantations and memory-replaying water-mirrors, but I’ve always admired the conviction and nuance with which the Harry Potter films treat these fetishised magical objects. Much of this is due to the excellent cast, but the production design is beautiful, and the special effects are almost always top-notch. (Well, almost always. I’ll get to that.)

As fans will recall, Harry and his loyal mates Hermione Granger (Emma Watson) and Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) have dropped out of school to find and destroy the various Horcruxes in which their arch-nemesis has secreted bits of his soul. Their quest takes them on a thrilling heist of Gringott’s Bank – one of the film’s few good uses of its 3D technology – then back to Hogwart’s, now becoming uncomfortably fascistic under the headmastership of Severus Snape (the always brilliant Alan Rickman, who… takes… at… least… one… second’s… pause… between… each… sarcastic… word). The stage is set for a climactic battle in which all the series’ major characters show their true colours in bravura style.

We are by no means the first to point out how much the Harry Potter series resembles Star Wars. In part, that’s because both are classic Bildungsroman/hero quest narratives, in which a young protagonist’s struggles in the wider world shape his or her character and morality, until finally he or she emerges as a mature adult.

"Dumbledore never told you what happened to your father…"

But I was struck throughout the movie at the smaller aesthetic similarities between the two series – the robed costuming; the wise mentors; the way the hero’s dead family and teachers appear to him as bluish-tinged ghosts in the forest; the romance between the hero’s two friends; the contrasting-coloured light beams emerging from weapons in the climactic duel. (However, the Harry Potter universe reverses the Star Wars paradigm that cool colours=good and warm colours=evil.)

Even in the Battle of Hogwarts, which the Harry Potter wiki hilariously informs me took place on 2 May 1998, Harry, Ron and Hermione dash through the chaos, firing off short bursts of magic from their wands like pew pew pew!, seemingly without saying accompanying spells. Since when were wands blaster pistols?

Moral sacrifice is also a motif common to both series – and Rowling has come clean on Harry Potter‘s CS Lewis-esque Christian overtones. Jason Isaacs, who plays Lucius Malfoy, also says Draco (Tom Felton) is the real hero of the series, but plenty of characters are offered redemption through moments of courage, repentance and personal sacrifice. However, the film juggles so many characters that the actions of only a few carry emotional resonance.

Then there’s the risible epilogue, set 19 years afterwards. I understand why it was deemed necessary to add closure, but its ham-fisted sentimentality rudely shattered the film’s earlier, gritty atmosphere. Despite their SFX makeup, the young cast simply aren’t convincing as older versions of themselves, and it’s a piss-poor tribute to the Harry Potter universe’s increasingly complex and elegiac tone to depart it in guffaws.

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