Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 2 - Full Review

Sh*t 's about to hit the fan!

Yes I'm a huge fan of Harry Potter. I love the Harry Potter series and fell in love with it when Rowling brought out book 4. From the first time I laid my eyes on the first book, it was an all-new kind of story filled with its own mythology and lore of magic and fantasy and dotted with very fun and interesting characters that soon we come to love for a long time. By the time the first film came out, it was uncertain of how the series would play out throughout as separate individual films. Yet it seem like a miracle that the film series would still keep the interest of audience and the successes in both financially and critically as well as all of the original cast holding on to the roles for all 8 films. It just makes me happy enough that a book series I hold dearly was given so much respect and care in translating to the big screen where most series/franchises won't be given a chance. Now at last the final film of Harry Potter have now been shown with all of the cast and crew be giving their last bow in the most emotional and spectacular way. How I came out of the theater would have me split in two ways, as a film-goer and a Harry Potter fan. And that is how I will be writing this review.

Knew it, you got pink eyes...

The storyline is somehow relatively simple as it continues where Part 1 left off as Voldemort (evil bad-guy number 1) is pretty much desperately wanting to kill Harry Potter by claiming the Elder Wand while the band of heroes (Harry, Ron, Hermione) are checking off one by one of the Horcruxes, which are parts of Voldemort's soul so they can finish him off once and for all. It is a fast, emotional and dangerously race against each other where many lives are in danger and lost, the stakes are highs, pasts are uncovered, courage are put to the test and many many sh*t blows up.

Stop spit-balling the castle!

Now as a Harry Potter fan, from reading the book, I could say that it translated respectfully and well enough from the book. I could understand of the many changes from the storyline and some of these changes work better than the book. Though the film still suffers from the same problem as many Harry Potter adaptations as many of fine and important details from the books are not included or that some of the events are not satisfyingly branched out/developed well enough where as the books has. It is understandable that the past films were allowed only a certain amount of time to develop these events. However at this point when they decided to split the final book into two films, they should take advantage of this and develop more of the story, events and characters, which in turn the film stop short of it. And as a fan who really loves the last Harry Potter book because of all the significant and great moments within, I would have love to see these moments to be grander and fully-scaled in film, which honestly didn't played out like that all all. As a film-goer, it is a pretty well-rounded and well-balanced film that had the appropriate amount of drama, emotions and spectacles while still retaining that epic feel. The pacing problem is still present, but not so much as the last film and the emotional and drama are consistently genuine throughout.

It is just amazing to see the three original actors who stuck on to the roles of Harry, Hermione and Ron for a decade, to have us grow up onscreen and to becoming such decent actors. Despite not being fully utilized well as in the books, the characters throughout the series have been shaped maturely physically and mentally and each have their own last hurrah in the film. Not to mention of how good-looking they have become. Daniel Radcliffe has had the weight of the entire film franchise on his shoulders for the past eight films and he is still great for each reprisal for the films. Rupert Grint have been the comedic support in the past films, but he still managed to pull serious dramatic chops in the last two. Emma Watson still pulls off being the graceful and strong Hermione and damn it is just so unbelievable that she became so hot. There are THREE times she had gotten herself wet and each time my tongue just swaggered. It was a nice change for Voldemort from being powerful and cocky to desperate and more dangerous. And hey the man of the moment is Matthew Lewis as Neville Longbottom. Seeing him from a short chubby goody-two-shoe geek to a complete and utter badass gives a lot of hope for the nerds out there... well not all of them. Wish there was more screen time for him because he's just a badass, but there were two extremely awesome moments of him that I was just happy to leave that.

Try to make fun of my name, b*tches!

As I said by the time I exited the theater, my opinion is split by the two sides of me, the film-goer and the Harry Potter fan. It is inevitable that they will be details left out and plot points will be changed, so I had to forced myself to see this as a film version, instead of a direct adaptation. That said I couldn't be more impressive that a studio would reach and complete all seven books of the series without any hiccups and kept their quality intact. For this being a huge movie event, the story and character elements still remained important and essential while giving the audience grand and wonderful spectacles (You hear that Michael Bay!) As a Harry Potter fan, I'm a little disappointed that some of the points weren't executed or portrayed well and they can ranged from nit-picky to problems. Other than that it is a real satisfying and grand finale to the biggest and most beloved film franchises ever existed. Thank you JK, Heyman and Radcliffe for this and good luck in the future.

As a Harry Potter fan - 4 out of 5 stars

As a film-goer - 4 and a half out of 5 stars