movies: harry potter and the deathly hallows part ii

harry potter and the deathly hallows part ii - it all endsI should have realised that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 wouldn't make me cry anything like the first half... after all, I don't think the latter half of the novel affected me as much either.

But I did get choked up a few times... oddly enough, mostly when references to the previous movies was made... but then I have just finished watching them all essentially back to back.

And of course, the whole "19 years later" scene got me.

Mostly though I thought it was a worthy climax to the last ten years worth of movies... but like pretty much all of it's predecessors, the issue is always what they have to leave out in order to make a movie that stands on it's own and is the required length... unfortunately that has a tendency to either excise entire subplots or just leave the barest threads of them around the main story.

It does tend to mean that the movie bounces along at a rollicking pace... especially because the majority of the action in the original novel takes place in the latter half. But if often feels like there isn't really enough time to catch your breath between action beats.

The other thing that makes the movie feel speedy is the parade of former cast members who show up, sometimes only for long enough to prove they were actually there before they disappear again... I think the only one who doesn't show up is Kenneth Branagh as Gilderoy Lockhart...

We saw the 3D version.... which was possibly neither here nor there really... in fact I kinda stopped noticing it after a while... but for the most part, other than perhaps a brief broomstick/flying/fire scene, the movie looked really good and lacked some of the "rubbery CGI" that have appeared in most of the previous films.

But other than those few minor quibbles, as I said before, it's a fitting climax to the series.

yani's rating: 3 horcrux out of 5

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