I was really excited to see this with it being the final part of what are essentially the books of my childhood. Though some of the adaptations have disappointed (namely The Prisoner of Azkaban) most have lived upto what I expected on-screen, and I was curious to see if it ended on a high or not.
It is difficult to explain the story to anyone who isn't familiar with the plot already, given that it is the finale, so I won't try and delve into it in great detail. It is enough to say that Harry Potter is an orphaned boy-wizard who, having now come of age and mastered his magic skills, is on the final hunt for his nemesis Lord Voldemort, who failed to kill him when he was a baby. With the support of his friends and loyal followers including Ron, Hermione and The Order of the Phoenix (a select group of powerful wizards and witches) Harry hopes to destroy Voldemort, and rid the wizarding world of his evil. Obviously I would be doing J.K. Rowling a massive injustice if I thought this was all that her seven publications are about, but for the purpose of this review, I will leave it at that.
The films have become drastically darker as the story has progressed, and you can definitely tell that the director of the final four, David Yates, wanted to emphasise the more frightening elements when he took over. The Deathly Hallows Part 2 is without doubt the darkest of all the films, so much so that I would hesitate to take a child to watch it, despite the 12A certificate. As there are a lot of battle and action scenes throughout, there is frequent bloody violence and scary images appear regularly. This, however, is no negative point, as I personally feel that if this were to be watered down, it would reduce the credibility of the performances. After all, the most powerful wizard in the world is not going to be defeated with a sprinkle of pixie dust!
As the actors playing the Hogwarts students have become older, their acting skills have been fine-tuned, and so I no longer spent half the film cringing at half-hearted attempts at performing. I am not a huge Daniel Radcliffe (Potter) fan, but this is certainly his best performance, even if it does pale in comparison to the brilliant character portrayals by Alan Rickman (Snape) and Helena Bonham Carter (Bellatrix Lestrange). The special effects are amazing, but then that is to be expected with the advances in technology over the period of the films' releases, but even so, I was pretty impressed. I would recommend seeing this if you have been following the series thus far; if not, hire the box set and catch up, it's worth it in the end!
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