Escape to the Movies: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II

[Shale_Dirk]

My thoughts:

Alan Rickman proves that bit characters can be remarkably deep given the right actor. He's likely been waiting all series for what this movie gave him and he knocked it out of the park.

Looking sullenly into the distance and cutting away to "19 years later" is not denouement. I don't care that they all grew up and had families, etc. What was important for this movie after the final fight was a sense of collective accomplishment, and paying attention to the characters' final moments, specifically in the form that we have invested 7 years into becoming attached. All I saw were a few smiles in slow motion. There wasn't any sense of closure or emotion from anyone other than the main three. That's terrible.

One of the first times a movie has successfully conveyed to me a deep feeling of gravitas. This movie got so many things right when it comes to tone its hard to focus on its faults.

I wish there had been 10 more minutes of dialogue between characters, expositional or not. Dialogue is something that I've enjoyed in this series and overall it seemed the dialogue was cut back in this one to make room for the fights and other action sequences.

I was hoping the final battle was going to be more epic, a la Dumbledore vs Voldemort.

Why was Ron crying about his brother dying, while the twin was just standing there looking kinda bothered? I would imagine the twin would have way more to be upset about. I could have understood it if they gave a close-up of his face and he was completely emotionless from the shellshock, but they met it in the middle and it didn't make sense.

 

[Shale_Dirk]

Good thing I've read the book, so I don't need to worry about spoilers...

Although, I haven't read the final book in a long time, so I'm still a little confused about the whole "Elder Wand being Harry's" business...

Almost, but not quite.

Malfoy disarmed Dumbledore before Snape killed him. The Elder Wand became Malfoy's. Harry later disarmed Malfoy, and thus it became his.

Discussion of something that specific to the plot should be put in a spoiler alert. It's a reveal that happens during this movie.

 

[MB202]

Good thing I've read the book, so I don't need to worry about spoilers...

Although, I haven't read the final book in a long time, so I'm still a little confused about the whole "Elder Wand being Harry's" business...

Its because at the end of the 6th book malfoy kills dumbldore and in the 7th book harry beats malfoy so harry gets ownership. The wand basically will only work if it is won off its current owner.

I know, I've been told this already!

 

[aba1]

Good thing I've read the book, so I don't need to worry about spoilers...

Although, I haven't read the final book in a long time, so I'm still a little confused about the whole "Elder Wand being Harry's" business...

Its because at the end of the 6th book malfoy kills dumbldore and in the 7th book harry beats malfoy so harry gets ownership. The wand basically will only work if it is won off its current owner.

I know, I've been told this already!

cool alright superduper foshizit ya b-dog props to dat with a blat blat superrad!

OVER THE RAINBOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

 

[Atmos Duality]

I couldn't bear watching beyond the third movie for the same reasons I didn't really enjoy reading the series after the third book.
By the time I made it to the Deathly Hallows, it was excruciatingly slow, dark, and mostly boring (it's easier for me to remember the specific events in the series until Goblet of Fire; I barely remember anything in the last two books apart from the endings).
Yet I finished it anyway.

So really, I have no opinion on the whole "Franchise Miracle" that were the Harry Potter movies.
Though I do wonder if anyone else felt the same as I did: "Thank fuck this is finally over."

 

[dragonburner]

Great casting for all of the characters. I don't know how the could have known these kids would age to be perfectly just like the characters in the book.

 

[tobimaro]

I think I'll go back and read the book.

 

[Hugga_Bear]

Good film, could have been better is basically my verdict. They missed out on a lot of the smaller characters and focused too much on the trio for my liking. Also the very last fight with Harry and the big bad and the others and the big bads pet dragged on for too long, they could have shortened it a little to have some of the other content in there.

That said, loved it when Harry went to the woods alone, that was shot perfectly in my eye, especially because of how cheesy it could be with the stone.
Also the general chaos in the fights was well done but again no focus on anything except the three and maybe a gratuitous shot of someone else, if you're lucky. Considering we're introduced over the 7 other films to many characters it would be nice to see some of them being brave and so on.

All in all, good film, you need to have seen the prior ones for it to make any sense and if you've read the books it definitely helps...

 

[SextusMaximus]

I'm glad it's over.

After the third film this series started limping like a one-legged walrus. Mainly due to it being the same fucking movie everytime: Harry returns to Hogwarts and discovers an evil plan by Voldemort. No one but Ron and Hermione believe him, but in the end the truth reveals itself and Harry is proven to be correct, only to be disbelieved again in the next movie. Wash, rinse, repeat.

That and the fact that David Yates lacks any form of cinematic vision.

I don't think you were paying enough attention at all.

Probably not.

But that was due to the fact that by the fourth movie, I was just tired of watching these one dimensional pure good, pure evil characters playing the same old tune.

By Harry Potter 4, they start revealing their other dimensions.

Harry Potter is an arrogant asshole.
Ron Weasley gets jealous of Harry and total misinterprets situations.
Hermione Granger is a stroppy ***** to Ron.

Also, the bad guys do the same;
I mean, Bellatrix is evil - but also a total badass

 

[tobyornottoby]

Actually, Rowling told the actor who plays Snape at the beginning (the making of the first movie) what his plot twist was so he could get in the role better. He was one of the few people who knew all this time =)

 

[matt87_50]

as someone who didn't read the books and some how managed to dial down the brain enough to not predict what is in retrospect a fairly obvious 'twist' (made easier by not knowing there was a twist... sorry...), I for one found the highlight of the movie, the 'twist' along with Snape's story. next to it I found the stuff to do with the massive wand rather weak. (though it didn't help that I was mainly trying not to snigger when ever they talked in length about mighty wands...)

all in all, a great movie. just gets in there and gets it done, as Bob says, all the fun parts of a movie, as the boring parts were taken care of in previous ones.

 

[Tormuse]

I can identify with Bob's "That's it?" sentiment. As Bob said, a majority of the movie is the ending battle scene. The filmmakers drew out the climax so much that, ironically, the real climax is actually anti-climactic. I felt it was kind of a lame ending for the series, really.

Don't get me wrong; I mean the special effects were spectacular! Lots of chunky explosions and flashy colourful magic effects and magically animated creatures battling it out with people fighting and dying all over the place... but the pacing of the climax kind of ruined it for me.

As for comparisons with the book... the omission of Dumbledore's backstory means that all those hints about his past in Part 1 have no payoff, and there's no explanation of his connection with the Deathly Hallows...

Spoiler

or how he came to acquire the elder wand and resurrection stone. (The audience is apparently just supposed to accept that he had them) And speaking of which, this movie has no mention of the third Hallow, Death's cloak, at all! So, the fact that Harry entered the forest at the end as the first person in history to unite the Hallows was completely lost.

(though it didn't help that I was mainly trying not to snigger when ever they talked in length about mighty wands...)

I've heard it said that enjoyment of the books and movies is greatly improved if you mentally substitute the word "wang" for "wand" in each case.

EDIT: Oh yeah! And they cut out one of my favourite lines:

Spoiler

During the flashback, when Dumbledore tells Snape to kill him, Snape sarcastically asks, "Would you like me to do it now? Or would you like a few moments to compose an epitaph?"

Actually, that counts as one of my favourite lines in anything ever.

 

[Max_imus]

Saw it yesterday (yay for late German releases), and I must say it is a nice ending to this series that, beyond the first two movies, I regard as a work almost entirely apart from the books. After the sixth movie I had actually lost hope (no, actually, that was after the 5th, I still havent been able to make myself see the whole 6th).
That is in large part due to the amount of directors who fiddled with it, and the amount of stuff they omitted. I know and understand why they did it, but there are just so many things that made the books magical for me that are never even mentioned in the movies.

Spoiler

Also, what's wrong with them, making the Harry/Ginny relationship so underwhelming? Ginny has about 10 lines in all the movies combined and seems to have no skills besides saying "Harry!" and making dull faces. Their big reunion scene in 7.2 consists of them staring at each other blankly from about 10 metres of each other, what the hell?

"That's it?" says it all, I think.

 

[cross_breed]

I'm one of the few members of that young-generation target demographic who is really quite indifferent to these movies. I don't have a hatred for them, but I don't really love them either. I think the reason for this is largely due to the fan base. It's one of those things where the fans can ruin it for everyone else (á la Lost) by being so obnoxious about it. If it wasn't such a huge thing, I could probably enjoy it a lot more.