Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part Two
This is my sister's review:
This movie makes Part 1 worth seeing, which is high praise considering I fell asleep in theater for that sleeper.* Helps you remember that this is just the way the book felt, so many pages of FUCKING CAMPING. In fact, if you haven’t seen Part II yet, stop reading this and go watch Part I. If that is definitely not going to happen, watch this short video that completely synopsizes the plot while including mostly movie lines and almost all replicated scenes.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II is The Voldemort Movie of the franchise. Ralph Fiennes is wonderful: giddy, panicked, indifferently violent. His portrayal demonstrated how this is a man who split his soul so many times that he didn’t even notice one of them; something my reading of JK Rowling’s Voldemort didn’t give me.
If this is The Voldemort Movie, Neville “people die everyday” Longbottom definitely gets second billing for long-awaited awesomeness. The courtyard scene was just right, especially for Neville and the Malfoys. Speaking of, remember how Draco was beautiful and Neville was unrecoverably goofy in year 2 and 3? Funny compared to now; my personal apologies to Tom Felton for growing into his face weird.
Harry at King’s Cross station opened just like it should have and was a highlight of the movie for me. A different director could have butchered that scene. Beautiful. Narcissa, even, was perfect. I really didn’t get the Black family from the books… again, the movies brought out some real talent, especially among the Death Eaters.
Romance? Hermione / Ron was anticlimactic, I guess because they didn’t really sell their rough relationship in Part 1 in either the book or the movie. Or because they’ve been together all along. Ahww. Ginny had a well-acted bit part, just like she has all along. No return of slut!Ginny, which is accurate.
You’d think if they split a book that was shorter than Goblet of Fire into two full length theater release movies, we could get some of the coolest aspects of the plot included. You’d be disappointed.
They had to leave out something complaints:
Why can’t we get the racism with the elves and the goblins? The goblin just wanted that sword, he just really likes it, that’s what we’re led to believe.
Hagrid and the giants? Hello?
But thank you, movie, for skipping the Dumbledore’s portrait scene that cleared up and straightened out a lot of loose ends. Because really, if you’re complaining about plot holes in the harry potter MOVIES, that means you haven’t read the books well enough. The movies, taken as a whole, are comprehensible, but Rowling does a tedious job of connecting loose threads.
Knowing when to use a Hallow or not is what made Harry most powerful magically. In case you didn’t pick up on this from Part 1, Harry = Frodo with more than just the Horcruxes.
How did Harry not die but still talk to Dumbledore if he dropped the resurrection stone in the forest?
Accuracy complaints:
Evan especially had beef with their treatment of the Snape memory scene. The scene itself was adorable – casting, blocking, dialogue, adorable. I was very happy with how the biggest accuracy complaint ever (besides the completely extraneous Weasley corn fire) – Snape’s “shh” instead of body-binding curse in the Astronomy Tower (6-HBP) was used effectively to remind the audience of the Potions / DADA / Headmaster’s deceit and betrayal.
Obviously Harry and Voldemort don’t go flying around Hogwarts, but I’m pretty sure that Harry and his Horntail don’t in 4-GF either. It’s just a cool shot. Nice facial acting on Fiennes when Harry calls him Tom, too.
Mrs. Weasley’s infamous line wasn’t as loud as I expected – same problem I had with Hermoine’s Appugno in whichever movie Ron had a girlfriend – but I did enjoy seeing her mute in multiple scenes, just lying in wait for her big line. Luna and the Grey Lady were wonderfully Ravenclaw . The Lupins felt like an afterthought, kind of like this sentence.
I set a high bar for the last scene and assumed that they would include all of the dialogue. They didn’t, and that was okay. It was nice how there wasn’t much makeup on the actors for 19 years later. That was a good choice.
*Sleeper apparently means a movie that doesn’t do well at the box office or does better than expected or something to do with gross sales. Am instead using it in the Budzek way to mean soporific, as in “it was a blockbuster original… a real sleeper.” Seriously, that movie has some of the longest stretches of nothing ever.
This movie makes Part 1 worth seeing, which is high praise considering I fell asleep in theater for that sleeper.* Helps you remember that this is just the way the book felt, so many pages of FUCKING CAMPING. In fact, if you haven’t seen Part II yet, stop reading this and go watch Part I. If that is definitely not going to happen, watch this short video that completely synopsizes the plot while including mostly movie lines and almost all replicated scenes.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II is The Voldemort Movie of the franchise. Ralph Fiennes is wonderful: giddy, panicked, indifferently violent. His portrayal demonstrated how this is a man who split his soul so many times that he didn’t even notice one of them; something my reading of JK Rowling’s Voldemort didn’t give me.
If this is The Voldemort Movie, Neville “people die everyday” Longbottom definitely gets second billing for long-awaited awesomeness. The courtyard scene was just right, especially for Neville and the Malfoys. Speaking of, remember how Draco was beautiful and Neville was unrecoverably goofy in year 2 and 3? Funny compared to now; my personal apologies to Tom Felton for growing into his face weird.
Harry at King’s Cross station opened just like it should have and was a highlight of the movie for me. A different director could have butchered that scene. Beautiful. Narcissa, even, was perfect. I really didn’t get the Black family from the books… again, the movies brought out some real talent, especially among the Death Eaters.
Romance? Hermione / Ron was anticlimactic, I guess because they didn’t really sell their rough relationship in Part 1 in either the book or the movie. Or because they’ve been together all along. Ahww. Ginny had a well-acted bit part, just like she has all along. No return of slut!Ginny, which is accurate.
You’d think if they split a book that was shorter than Goblet of Fire into two full length theater release movies, we could get some of the coolest aspects of the plot included. You’d be disappointed.
They had to leave out something complaints:
Why can’t we get the racism with the elves and the goblins? The goblin just wanted that sword, he just really likes it, that’s what we’re led to believe.
Hagrid and the giants? Hello?
But thank you, movie, for skipping the Dumbledore’s portrait scene that cleared up and straightened out a lot of loose ends. Because really, if you’re complaining about plot holes in the harry potter MOVIES, that means you haven’t read the books well enough. The movies, taken as a whole, are comprehensible, but Rowling does a tedious job of connecting loose threads.
Knowing when to use a Hallow or not is what made Harry most powerful magically. In case you didn’t pick up on this from Part 1, Harry = Frodo with more than just the Horcruxes.
How did Harry not die but still talk to Dumbledore if he dropped the resurrection stone in the forest?
Accuracy complaints:
Evan especially had beef with their treatment of the Snape memory scene. The scene itself was adorable – casting, blocking, dialogue, adorable. I was very happy with how the biggest accuracy complaint ever (besides the completely extraneous Weasley corn fire) – Snape’s “shh” instead of body-binding curse in the Astronomy Tower (6-HBP) was used effectively to remind the audience of the Potions / DADA / Headmaster’s deceit and betrayal.
Obviously Harry and Voldemort don’t go flying around Hogwarts, but I’m pretty sure that Harry and his Horntail don’t in 4-GF either. It’s just a cool shot. Nice facial acting on Fiennes when Harry calls him Tom, too.
Mrs. Weasley’s infamous line wasn’t as loud as I expected – same problem I had with Hermoine’s Appugno in whichever movie Ron had a girlfriend – but I did enjoy seeing her mute in multiple scenes, just lying in wait for her big line. Luna and the Grey Lady were wonderfully Ravenclaw . The Lupins felt like an afterthought, kind of like this sentence.
I set a high bar for the last scene and assumed that they would include all of the dialogue. They didn’t, and that was okay. It was nice how there wasn’t much makeup on the actors for 19 years later. That was a good choice.
*Sleeper apparently means a movie that doesn’t do well at the box office or does better than expected or something to do with gross sales. Am instead using it in the Budzek way to mean soporific, as in “it was a blockbuster original… a real sleeper.” Seriously, that movie has some of the longest stretches of nothing ever.
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