Last weekend signaled the expiration date to many childhoods around the world. The release of the eighth and last part of the epic that is Harry Potter definitely stirred buckets of tears as fans said goodbye to wands, castles, elves, goblins, witches, wizards, and magic.
Personally, I alternated between excitement and full on grief – a bipolar condition I’m rather positive most Potter fans faced as well. Unfortunately, all muggles who kept track of Harry’s every move knew this wonderful franchise was bound to come to an end, which is what left every fan in the cinema desperately attempting to hold back their tears at the close of the film.
To refresh your minds, the movie starts off where Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 1 left us which is where Harry, Hermione, and Ron have just finished burying Dobbie the house elf who rescued them from Malfoy Manor. The trio then rushes through a series of obstacles and adventures to locate the remaining horcruxes– objects defiled with very, very dark magic. In order to make sure that Voldemort finally dies, Harry, Ron, and Hermione must destroy these horcruxes. First, they sneak their way into Gringotts, one of the magical world’s safest banks in which a pretty awesome action sequence ensues. They then carry on in their search for the last couple of Horcruxes which leads them back to Hogwarts, where most of this movie's action takes place.
I don't want to spoil much of the plot so I'll stop my summary here. The action in this movie is pretty great and the screenwriter definitely found a way to make the movie as light hearted as possible, though as a reader of the series, I may not personally have liked that it was light-hearted, but the average movie-goer should enjoy it just the same.
The great battle scene at the end up was definitely worth the ten year wait. The movie was incredibly action packed with great CGI. Between the statues and the giants and the goblins, if this part doesn’t get an Oscar for Best Visual Effects I'm going to blow a gasket. They definitely worked hard on tying most of the plots together trying to please the fans and there were a couple of tear jerking moments.
I'm not going to lie, the movie was below my expectations, but then again I've been building this up in my head for the past 4 years ever since I read the book back in 2007. I think most of my frustration stems from the fact that the screenwriter cut most of my favorite scenes out and that certain character deaths were underplayed. However I'll give them credit for a scene that includes a certain Prof. Snape that was, for lack of other words, amazing.
To sum it up, this is the finale of something that has captured the world's attention for the past ten years; it could have been 2+ hours of a snail moving and I would have still thought it was awesome. Whether it was a slight disappointment or not (and I know many people who thought it was everything they expected) I still plan to go watch it six other times and clap when the closing titles roll and I will still make my future offsprings watch it years from now. If you're a fan of either the books, the movies, or both you'd be a fool not to go book a ticket and watch it as soon as possible.
Verdict: 3.75 out of 5 stars
– Haya Al-Farhan
Images: IMDb.com
