Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2

Directed by David Yates

(PG-13)

***

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With all the things that could have gone wrong in bringing eight Harry Potter movies to the screen across 10 long years, “it’s practically a statistical anomaly that the final entry brings its A-game from start to finish,” said Alonso Duralde in Reuters.com. This closing chapter likely won’t win any last-minute converts, but devoted followers of the highest-grossing film franchise in history should walk away with “a feeling of catharsis and, perhaps, a slightly damp handkerchief.”

Deathly Hallows 2 is “essentially a war movie,” said Richard Corliss in Time. The dark lord Voldemort and his terrifying forces are laying siege to the wizarding school Hogwarts, and Harry and his friends must return to their alma mater and defeat them to save the world from evil. But while “the battle scenes are boldly presented,” the heart of this movie is in the small moments that show the young stars interacting with “the amazing cadre of British acting royalty” who’ve bolstered the entire series. Much of the epic’s drama, after all, has dealt with “a matter close to the young: Which adults can you trust?” Once again, Ralph Fiennes, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, and other seasoned thespians get to have almost “too much fun,” while the younger actors are asked to shoulder the drama’s weight, said Kate Muir in the London Times. As Harry’s best pal, Ron, Rupert Grint “seems to have regressed.” But “Emma Watson has grown into a convincing Hermione, and Daniel Radcliffe is a steadily improving Harry—except when he makes his squished ‘Ooh-look-I’m-flying-in-the-wind’ face.”

The movie falters only at its climax, said Justin Chang in Variety. Though the final showdown between Harry and Voldemort works better on screen than it did in J.K. Rowling’s series-ending book, it “feels unduly hastened.” Even so, that ill-timed stumble is not what this “terrifically exciting” film will be remembered for, said Peter Bradshaw in the London Guardian. Deathly Hallows 2 has “restored the essential magic to the Potter legend” with its pacing and its spectacular effects, but most of all by giving us a young hero of admirable courage and complexity. Harry has become “most likable, sadly, at the point where we must leave him forever.”