The Harry Potter film series has been one of the most successful and most unique in cinema history. There’s not many franchises that can boast reaching 8 film, with most of the original cast intact, with each entry making nearly a billion dollars at the box office…not to mention income generated form DVD sales, TV rights and merchandising. And with the final film, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 destroying box office records around the world the big question is does the series go out with a bang or a whimper?
The answer is a most definite ‘bang’ as Part 2 in by far the best of the series. To be fair most of it's success as a stand alone film has to do with where it's placed in chronological order in the franchise and what role it plays in the overall story. With all the transitional story having been set up in the last two films (Voldermort's rise to power and the knowledge of what Harry and friends must do to defeat him) Deathly Hallows 2 gets to pay everything off. Apart from a couple of dialogue scenes at the films start to recap events and to lay out the direction of Harry's quest for the final part of the saga, and then a grand action sequence involving a bank heist, there's little more set up required. About 25 minutes into the film, from Act II onwards, there's no let up. The cards are on the table, all the chips are down and all bets are off. The good guys and the bad guys know what the endgame is and they understand what's at stake for themselves if they lose; it's now simply a matter of who can achieve their goals first.
The meandering nature of the majority of the films actually plays to Part 2's success. The longer the set up...the more time we've had to invest in the characters and to understand the Potter-verse, the more dramatic and apocalyptic the events in the finale feel. The TV series Babylon 5 (which told a single story spanning 110 episodes over 5 years) did this to great effect when it slowly but surely built to a moment 54 months into it's run where the characters had to make a fight or submit decision that would forever alter the direction of the narrative. And boy did that pack a punch like no other story I've seen. The longer the set up the more powerful the pay off. In fact it makes me wonder if the Harry Potter saga might have played better if it had been a TV series instead.
The simplicity of the plot strengthens this film. It's a war story, plain and simple. Harry and friends are the men on a mission with victory or loss of the war dependent on them. The students and teachers are the soldiers and the school itself, the setting for the majority of the series, now the battleground. It's a thrill to see the peripheral characters, usually so benign, rising to the occasion whether it's Maggie Smith's kickarse School Mistress or Matthew Lewis' once-weakling student, Neville Longbottom. The buildup to the siege of Hogwarts is filled with nervous anticipation and a doom laden expectation that thing's aren't going to end well for the small group of defenders while the final battle itself doesn't disappoint.
David Yates direction is typically restrained, maybe too restrained for some tastes, but it means the more sentimental stuff isn’t overwhelming, and is probably more powerful because of it. Whether it's Ron and Hermione's kiss or Harry's ghostly encounter with his parents, Yates keeps the emotion bottled up, making it even more moving when he let's it of the leash in brief but powerful moments. And Part 2 has many powerful scenes, the best realised of which are the revelations into Alan Rickman's Professor Snape's past. While it was always pretty clear that Snape’s motivations weren’t entirely evil, the reason for his past actions is pulled sharply into focus, and Alan Rickman rises to the occasion with a beautifully judged performance that's unquestionably heartbreaking.
On top of that you've got an elegant score by Alexandre Desplat, some of the best production design of the series, flawless effect on a grand scale and the best of British acting talent re-assembled for one last get-together. Daniel Radcliffe won't ever be in the same league as Gary Oldman, Michael Gambon or John Hurt..especially when it comes to larger, more theatrical thesping...but he shines in the quieter moments like in an early encounter with Warwick Davies (also never better).
Yes it's the hero myth playing out again. And yes, if you've been paying attention these past years the outcome and how it comes about isn't hard to fathom. But like any World War II boys own adventure, it's not the destination, but the journey...and this is one hell of a final stretch of road.
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