A sad, spectacular end

Film reviews: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part II

MANILA, Philippines - There are some questions that will continue to haunt the Harry Potter stories for a long time in the future. One is, was author J.K. Rowling right in putting the tale to end after seven books? If she were tired from all the writing, she could have simply rested for a year or two and then pick up the adventures again.

Why, Rowling could have taken Harry and his friends to wizarding college in Oxford and given them a new set of interesting teachers in the future books. She could have even sent them to America to meet up with distant relatives in Salem, that is where legend says the witches live, and then given those vampires and superheroes in Hollywood a big run for their money.

Another one is if the movie producers were right in dividing the seventh and final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows into two films. Admittedly, the books have gotten darker, heavier and longer over the years. Given the fidelity to the novel that the Potter fanatics expect, compacting the written pages into the usual two hours must have been difficult. Take note though that epic novels like War and Peace and Gone with the Wind have been successfully and wonderfully compressed into regular movies.

But then, if one Potter picture can make a billion bucks at the box-office, dividing one book into two means doubling the money. Very big money. The only problem with this decision is that moviegoers got the beginning and the end of a story one year apart. They went home bitin from the first one because it had no ending. Then they will sit down to watch the next trying to recall all that went before. If you can, I recommend that you watch Deathly Hallows Part 1 before taking in Part 2.

Despite this though, I do not think anybody is likely to complain. After all, this is a Harry Potter movie and nobody listens to what critics or cynics or killjoy creatures might say about the much-loved franchise. That is described as being critic-proof, box-office not affected, in the trade. As it is, this final film is probably one of the most anticipated in movie history. It will also be the most watched.

It has been 10 years since the first film, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, was released. I watched it again a few days ago and I was happy to find out that it has retained the sense of wonder that was so much a part of its charm. How the kids Harry, Hermione and Ron have since grown. Most of the villains have now been put away. The tale is coming to its end and director David Yates has made it sad, moving, majestic and rightly spectacular. This is an ending that befits a modern legend.

Harry and his friends are in a race against Voldemort to get the last of the horcruxes. These are the objects that hold pieces of the soul of the evil lord. Getting them will bring Voldemort with all his powers back to life. What he is after now is the Elder Wand, which will give him immortality. His minions have also grown in strength and number. Even Hogwarts, with the treacherous Snape as the new headmaster, is now tightly guarded by Dementors and Deatheaters. The world is in turmoil, the future is bleak and whatever hope there is rests on Potter’s shoulders.

It is the classic battle of good and evil once more and Yates has given it an excellent setting. He provides chases, battles, explosions, flying sequences and other marvels for audiences to cheer and gape at. The special effects work in the picture, so natural and unobtrusive, and rank among the best. Despite this spectacle though, Yates immerses viewers in the bleak overall mood of the story, through his clever palette choice.

But it is the fact that many of us have followed the adventures of Harry for over a decade and that we are now so familiar with the characters that have made everything happening to them more involving. I have not ceased to marvel over how Rowling connected them to one another and through countless events through seven novels.

Poor Snape but what a wonderful actor Alan Rickman is. What a delightful actress Maggie Smith is, conveying so much with the slightest of movements as Professor McGonagall. Michael Gambon makes a formidable figure out of Dumbledore even in death. How nice to see John Hurt again as Ollivander, who holds the key to the Elder Wand. And the Malfoy guys, Tom Felton as Draco and Jason Isaacs as Lucious, make an excellent villainous pair.

But of course, this final chapter is really all about Harry and Voldemort. Daniel Radcliffe does not act. He is Harry Potter. Ralph Fiennes, though noseless makes a fearsome adversary. There is not really much to do for Emma Watson as Hermione and Rupert Grint as Ron but there cannot be a Harry Potter movie without them and they do help lighten things up as they try to cope with the stirrings of first love.

Chances are a lot of Harry Potter fans are now also of the age when romantic love is the most important part of their existence. And like the young heroes of J. K. Rowling they have also put away their childhood fantasies. But years from now, I am sure they will look back to their Harry Potter experience and remember it as a wonderful, most exciting ride.