So here we are. We've reached the end of the Harry Potter movies. The seven books, having been stretched out to eight films and nearly 20 hours of screen time and are now totally over forever (until J.K. Rowling writes a new book that is turned into a new movie). It's one of biggest, longest, most profitable film franchises ever. It's also a lot of fun. (If you haven't seen any of these movies, or none since the first, ignore the rest of this post as you will be bored miserably, I'm sure.)
HP7P2-3D is basically the second half, or really the last third, of the seventh and last Harry Potter book. It begins with a running start with the Harry, Ron and Hermione trio on the hunt for more of Voldemort's horcruxes (small things into which he injected parts of his soul to make it harder for him to be killed). They go to Gringott's to get one of them, and then realize one of the last ones is back in Hogwart's, from which they have been truants for the whole school year (no comment on how in a book about seven years at a school, they only spend about six there, with the last one a year of non-lesson-based Evil Lord-fighting. But J.K.R. wants kids to stay in school, or something).
When they get to Hogwart's they find the school in dark lock-down, now run by Snape, where the professors teach the kids all sorts of terrible magic to inflict pain on others. There are Death Eaters all about and all sorts of people in black leather (hot, if you're into that sorta thing). Harry gets a little help from his friends (students and teachers) in Dumbledore's Army and what's left of the Order of the Phoenix. They fight a massive knock down, drag-out fight with the bad guys before Harry's final one-on-one with Voldemort.
I think the movie smooths over some rough patches that I never liked in the book, particularly with Snape. I always felt like the 'Snape is a good guy' thing that we're told near the end was a bit too hard to swallow in the book. Here, however, director David Yates and writer Steve Kloves do a wonderful job of showing how Snape was always massively conflicted about Harry, about his eternal love for Harry's mom, Lilly, and his deep hatred for Harry's dad, who was probably a total douchebag who deserved to be killed by dark magic. The last 20 minutes of the film are particularly wonderful. The epilogue especially always felt forced and precious, but here feels totally natural and necessary. It's a lovely ending to a great epic story.
What I particularly like about this last film is how it brings in traditional themes from human existence and classical art: the idea of one person doing something alone versus someone working with their friends and allies to get a job done. It is very reminiscent to me of the classic story from Hollywood lore that after seeing Fred Zinnemann's High Noon (a story about a marshal who can't get help and is forced to defeat a bad guy singlehandedly), Howard Hawks decided to make Rio Bravo (a story about a sheriff who gets all the help he needs from his friends to defeat the bad guys) in response.
Voldemort is Marshal Will Kane and Harry Potter is Sheriff John T. Chance. We are constantly reminded here about how Voldemort (né Tom Riddle) is one of the greatest wizards ever, for better or worse, and how Harry is really only an average wizard who excels at making friends and having them help him. (There is even an suggestion, posited by Snape, that Harry is a proud prima dona and somewhat of a talentless jerk.) When Harry goes searching for the missing horcruxes, he does find a few on his own, but also needs help from his associates to find the others. Meanwhile, Harry is told that Voldemort found all of them on his own. I guess the idea that this Lincolnian leadership style is more effective, at least less demagogic and less evil.
I'm also very interested in the revisionist look at Snape as a reluctant collaborator. In this film, he's Maréchal Pétain, a stooge put in a position of power and told to stay quiet while terrible things happen inside his domain (the school). Unlike the general understanding of Pétain, however, Snape is hiding the fact that he's really on the side of good and not evil. Was Pétain trying to work against the Nazis and destroy the Reich from the inside? It's a very hard sell.
(Of course, we shouldn't forget that Snape did witness lots of evil things happen at Hogwarts and his Death-Eater days and it's hard to forgive him for those things. I don't care that Colin Powell didn't believe in the testimony he gave at the UN Security Council in 2003, he said it and it sent us to war and thousands of people to their death. He should have resigned if he was so morally torn. I won't forgive him now.)
The 3D worked really well in this film, probably better than I can remember in any Hollywood picture where I've seen it used. Some of the scenes play very well with the depth of focus and the disorienting quality of the enhanced image, like Gringott's sequence at the beginning. In other scenes, where there is little action, the 3D is used gently to simply show us how basic things recede into space. I would hope in years to come, directors use 3D more in this way than they do with some movies where it seems that dumb tricks are inserted into every shot to make sure we know we're seeing it in 3D and make sure we feel like we're getting our money's worth (we never get our money's worth as it's still way too expensive).
As with the last film, there is no need to see this movie if you haven't seen all the other ones, and particularly if you haven't seen the first part of this one. It is, however, very solid, much more interesting than I would have expected and a lot of fun from a sheer entertainment point of view.
Stars: 3 of 4
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