Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011)

It's odd to finally say goodbye to something that has been apart of my life for so long. The series of Harry Potter truly ended four years ago with the release of the seventh and final book, something we all anticipated with baited breath. That came out when I was making my transition from High School into College.

Now I have graduated College, and so it seems like fitting timing for the final of the Harry Potter films to be released, and for me to finally lay to rest and bid adieu the series that will define my generation. Truly, there have been few things in pop culture to rival the popularity of Harry Potter. We may never again have a book series so exciting that it causes all ages, kids to adults, to line up at midnight to purchase the new entry in the series.

And the films themselves are a remarkable achievement. True, they don't come close to rivaling the books, but the fact that the same core stuck with the film for so long, and that the only recasting came from Richard Harris' death is remarkable. The films have been magnificently successful, and the fact that Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson have grown to embody these three iconic characters is owed in large part to the casting. Ginny Weasley is one of the few characters who was ill cast (Bonnie Wright has never been particularly compelling).

And how does the final film hold up? It opens right where the last one left off, with Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) stealing the Elder Wand from Dumbledore's grave. Then we pick up with Harry, Ron, and Hermione staying with Ron's brother and plotting their next move, a break-in at the great Wizarding Bank Gringotts to infiltrate Bellatrix Lestrange's vault, in the hopes they will locate another Horcrux.

After the first five minutes, the remaining two hours take place over a single 24-hour period, as the trio infiltrates the bank in a wonderful sequence that finally, FINALLY gives us the scope of the caverns that lie beneath Gringotts, something that many criticized film one for leaving out. There is also a dragon, that owns its screen time and becomes quite a sympathetic character, yearning for sunlight and savoring its freedom once obtained. It's moment that could easily have been overlooked, but the CG wizards make it an emotional instant that works.

Harry then returns to Hogwarts to locate another Horcrux, and inadvertently begins the final standoff with Voldemort. It's a rather well executed final battle, and my only nitpick is that we don't get to see more of the resistance against Voldemort's onslaught (his army indeed outnumbers the forces at Hogwarts by 10-1). But there's also so many loose ends and back story to tie up that this can be forgiven.

Rather then continue summarizing, I will instead break off and mention what worked and what didn't. Probably the most important element that they nailed was Severus Snape (Alan Rickman), who is above all the most complex character in the Potterverse. The emotional impact his story has, the final revelation of his true colors, nearly brought a tear to my eye and definitely choked me up. It drives home the central theme of the entire series, that love conquers all. To see Snape's undying love for Harry's mother, and his allegiance to Dumbledore to protect her and her son, is a touching yet heartbreaking moment.

And Fiennes is finally given a lot of screen time (after being absent in Half-Blood Prince), finally making Voldemort the terrifying, fantastic villain he was meant to be. Not only does he strut about, sure of his immortality, but he is also allowed to express vulnerability as he realizes Harry is slowly wearing him down. The villain is always more fun to play, and Fiennes makes Voldemort a truly frightening presence.

There are also other great British actors, though Jim Broadbent (Slughorn) and Emma Thompson (Trelawney) are decidedly wasted and do nothing significant. But others including Maggie Smith, Jason Isaacs, Robbie Coltrane, Gary Oldman, Helena Bonham Carter, John Hurt, Warwick Davis, and Michael Gambon are put to good use and round out this terrific, powerhouse cast.

But the real pleasure has been seeing all the kids in the cast, including Matthew Lewis as Neville Longbottom, grow up into capable adults. Their lives have been presented to us in a sort of shortened Up Series, progressing from 11 to 21 (all the actors are around the same age as me). Years from now, they have the rare ability to look back upon these films, a time capsule of their youth (and ours).

Now, what the film did wrong: The whole final ten minutes, including Voldemort's death, is slightly underwhelming and doesn't quite pack the epic, satisfying punch that I was hoping for. Sure the movie delivers several cheer worthy moments, including the destruction of Voldemort's snake, but Voldemort's demise is more of a fizzle then a bang, though Harry and Voldemort's final duel is decidedly more action-packed then the novel (Harry talked down Voldemort for a solid ten minutes and explained a lot of things). But Voldemort simply dissolves into the wind and the next scene is simply all the characters sitting around drinking tea and recuperating, instead of joyously celebrating the fact that Voldemort has died. It's a moment that should have the audience on their feet, crazy with applause, and instead Voldemort just disappears. Disappointing.

And a moment that didn't work in the book or the movie is the 19-years-later epilogue, which while it provides the necessary wrap-up, feels like something out of an SNL sketch showing these characters nearing middle age (especially Radcliffe's make-up). It does provide a sweet moment between Harry and his son, and brings the series full circle, but I've always felt it make everything too perfect. Harry and Ginny stayed together, Ron and Hermione stayed together, and all was well. For a series with such a dark view of the world, the ending is decidedly optimistic.

These quibbles aside however, one must applaud David Yates, the man bequeathed the task of taking Harry into the final run by directing four of the eight films in the series. If he hasn't come out as a stylist, he has successfully created a continuity between the universes of the films, and ended the series as satisfyingly as he could. Alfonso Cuaron, director of part 3, still made the most stylistic Potter, and the most filmic. His hand has never been rivaled and everyone wished he would have helmed more, but hey, you can't always get what you want.

The films may have never achieved what the books did, but you have to admire Warner Bros. for sticking it out, through and through (how could they resist 7 or 8 easily marketable and definitely profitable films). Plenty of other popular children books have failed to translate (including the wonderful The Golden Compass), and the fact that this series made it is a feat in and of itself.

Harry Potter's end serves, I guess, as my final closure to the world that I have embraced for 12 years since I first discovered the books. I have left college now, and must look on to a terrifying yet exciting future, without any more Harry Potter films to look forward too. I have grown with these movies; I was 11 when the first movie came out, and am now in my early twenties, ready to bid adieu to the series. There will be no other film series like Harry Potter, that takes us through such a long, emotional journey that spans ten years and actually ends on a mostly fantastic note. This type of thing is once in a lifetime, and though I hate to do it, it is finally time to say a heartfelt farewell to the characters, the actors, the books, the movies, the entire world of Harry Potter. Thank you for providing escape to a magical, far off world, something that I will share with my children in years to come.

Avatar (2009)

It's nice to know that in this world there are still filmmakers who know how to make a solid action movie. Who know that an action movie isn't really about the action at all, but about the characters who carry out the actions. That Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) become completely identifiable and sympathetic in this movie is one of the only real reasons it works.

The film that took 12 years for Cameron to bring to us, Avatar, has certainly been analyzed as a Dances with Wolves, Smurfs, and Ferngully hybrid, and if you like boiling movie's plots down to essentially what they resemble, then this a fair assessment. But Cameron's picture succeeds because it takes what could have been a very silly story, and makes it believable. Sure, this movie is ridden with clichés, and every moment is predictable, but Cameron spends so much time painting the world of the Na'vi and their indigenous land that you fall for them as Jake Sully does.

The movie takes place some odd years in the future (it is never said, though keen eyed people probably picked up on the dates on video diary screens), where the natives of the planet Pandora reside upon a mineral source that is worth lots of money. So, naturally, corporate fat cats want to buy the land from the people and mine the shit out of that stuff. Problem is, the natives won't budge.

Sully is a paraplegic, and is assigned to Pandora when his brother is killed. A rather expensive avatar (Na'vi look-a-likes) was made for him, and since Sully shares the same Genome, he is the perfect money and time saving candidate for the job. Soon, he inhabits the Na'Vi's body and goes to learn about their people.

A lot of the characters in this movie are more caricature then character; Stephen Lang plays the evil Colonel, though really he is just doing his job. Giovanni Ribisi is the above mentioned fat cat, and Michelle Rodriguez plays the only soldier with enough of a conscious to decide killing innocent blue people is wrong. And on the Na'vi side there are the old, wise clan leaders and the hot head warrior that challenges the outsider.

But the movie stands above most other genre pictures because it marvels at the scenery and beauty that is surrounding them. 60% of the film is CGI, 40% live action, and you really can't tell the difference most of the time from scene to scene. The settings, the small creatures, and plants, trees and textures are so pain-stakingly detailed that they absorb you. The world of Pandora is unfolded to us as it is to Sully, and never overloads you with information.

I was skeptical of this movie, but by the time Sully tames a pterydactol thingy and flies through the air, I was sold on the movie and completely exhilarated. At that point, my brain took a backseat and I just drowned in the imagery and action at the end. I fought and fought the movie, and the movie deservedly one.

Maybe most surprising about this film is how patient it is. This is not an action heavy movie; there are few scenes at the beginning when local wildlife attack the naive Sully. But the Colonel doesn't roll out the artillery until the end, and the final action sequence is so epic it makes up for the "lack" of action and shooting earlier. Really, that is so rare for a movie these days to actually make its audience wait for the big battle at the end.

What's even more remarkable is that this movie is a blockbuster hit now, and is not based on anything concrete. Obviously it is an update of our genocide on the Native Americans way back when, but there is no comic book, novel, or anything else that this was based on. All the characters came from Cameron and his crew, and originality like that is about near impossible to find in Hollywood. Of course, the script could have been injected with a shot of originality too, but the creatures make up for that.

A note on the 3D in this picture: it is quite unlike what I have seen before. It doesn't call attention to itself and make things pop out of the screen to hit you. Instead, it just amplifies the scenery and creates more depth to what is going on. I've become less of a fan of 3D in the past year due to the insane amount of films that come out in the format, but here, the 3D doesn't drive the movie, it only serves to enhance everything. That being said, I also saw this in IMAX, and was quite confused as to why the image didn't fill the screen; I expected bars on top and bottom, but there were also pillars on the sides, so the image didn't stretch across the whole screen. Was it like that at other IMAXes? (and I mean real IMAX, not bullshit new IMAX).

This movie has set the bar pretty high in terms of photorealistic CGI; I've never seen anything so convincing, and wonder when the time will come that a whole movie will be created that is completely CGI, without actors (just voices), that is totally convincing. I honestly hope this never happens; CGI can't replace flesh, and Cameron wisely keeps the real actors in live action scenes instead of replacing them. Cameron and Peter Jackson know that CGI should only be used to enhance your movie, not drive it, and filmmakers like Michael Bay and George Lucas believe that computers can do everything.

I hope Cameron doesn't take another 12 years to make another movie; though he knows how to utilize CGI, he also lets the script for the most part take a back seat to it. But this is a smart movie; it doesn't say anything new, but it reiterates what we know, and there is a certain poignancy in watching a line of humans being marched onto a space ship and sent back home, defeated, in the end. "They killed their mother," one spiritually in-touch character says. It's a kick-in-the-pants reminder that we can't continue winning forever, and that eventually, the human race will lose.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)

The latest Harry Potter film is, if I may be so bold, probably the most well structured and paced movie of the six so far. How they pace the next two will be interesting, considering the massive amount of information that is revealed in those chapters. And they will be thrilling films, I do expect. But for now, we have this one.

David Yates, who directed the previous pic (one I consider the worst of the bunch), has finally found his footing and is much more assured in the director's chair. This film also benefits from being the first movie to be made since the final book was released, so the filmmakers now know what elements are the most important and can create the final three pictures as complimentary pieces.

Really, this film represents to me what the first five could have been, had the studios waited until all seven books were released before chopping them into films. When Peter Jackson made the Lord of the Rings, he had all three books at his disposal, and was even able to shift part of the Two Towers storyline into the Return of the King. But alas, we are already past the sixth movie, and are almost at the finish line for Harry Potter (for when the final films are released, Pottermania will finally cease).

Yates does something bold here: he invents new scenes to help enhance the story, and sets up the climax of the film much better then the book did (with the vanishing cabinet). Yates knows we know what will happen, so why bother keeping it a mystery? Establish it! And this is what he does.

The sixth film is increasingly darker, even though it is laced with the various love stories that permeate the film. Harry and Ginny finally hook up, Ron and Hermione are well on their way to being together, and this all of course builds up love, the key ingredient to Voldemort's defeat. People may complain about the many awkward moments sprinkled throughout the film, but I felt they worked beautifully, and you need them to drive the idea home.

Added scenes include Harry flirting with a café worker at the beginning, which was a nice touch, and various scenes of Malfoy attempting to fix the vanishing cabinet. One addition that I did not care for was a scene at the Burrow where the inhabitants are lured away and then watch as their home is burned. Of course, this is being done deliberately to shave off events in the next book, but it was odd and pulled me out of the moment because I was watching a moment that was significant and not a part of the books.

I have never really liked Michael Gambon's Dumbledore; he has been a harsher, meaner Dumbledore then what Richard Harris created. But in this film he finally embodies Dumbledore as a mortal man, which he does best, and really helps break down a character that you realize really isn't invincible.

Jim Broadbent as Horace Slughorn, the new Potions teacher, is another bit of dynamite casting, and really helps to buoyant the film in some of its darker moments. He is the key to finding out crucial information on destroying Voldemort, but he also really shines in his scenes, and will be missed since he appears very little in the next two movies.

My biggest problem with all the editing, however, was the flashbacks. This book is supposed to focus on studying Voldemort, what made him evil, what lead him down the path he took. Sadly, the movie decides that the only flashbacks worth showing are when Dumbledore first meets Riddle as a young boy, and the Slughorn memory that is the key to the next book's adventures. There are a lot more flashbacks that provide richer detail to who Dumbledore is, and I'm sad the filmmakers just didn't add another ten minutes to the film. This is honestly the first of the Potters that didn't feel it's length, mainly because it was well paced.

The biggest problem with this book and movie, however, is its anticlimactic ending. Dumbledore is killed by Snape, and the locket that Harry and Dumbledore retrieve is actually a fake one. And now Harry has to go and destroy Horcruxes. It reminds me of how I felt after finishing the sixth book, with a "wtf" feeling and wanting the next book in my hand immediately. Of course that is the nature of sagas, to leave you wanting more the next time around.

One change that I didn't expect and still haven't decided how I felt about it were the moments immediately following Dumbledore's death. The posse that Malfoy brings through the Vanishing Cabinet do no more then witness the event, and leave after trashing the Great Hall. Malfoy's original intention in bringing them was as defense as he went after Dumbledore, but since their presence is completely unnoticed by the "patrols" the fight that follows is gone. I understand they cut the fight for time, but really it made no sense because the castle was supposed to be "well guarded", so any breaches of security should have been noticed (they weren't even noticed upon departure).

Is this the best Harry Potter movie? No, I'd say not, but it's a definite step in the right direction to making the final two movies the best goddamn movies in the entire series. The film is the first Potter flick to feel like a real movie, and not a never-ending book adaptation. There is a dramatic structure and character arcs not always present the first two five times. David Yates has proved his sure hand, though, and needs to prove himself, in part II of the Deathly Hallows anyway, as a great action director.

Rating: 8/10