First Reviews are in for HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS Part 2
A collection of reviews have been rolling out for the most anticipated movie of the summer Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. I'm happy to tell you that they are all extremely positive. It never thought they would have screwed it up, but you never know these days. The film doesn't hit theaters until July 15th, and I can't wait to see the awesome conclusion to this incredible franchise myself.
Here's what the early reviews had to say about it. Check them out and hit us up in the comment section!
It ends well. After eight films in 10 years and a cumulative global box-office take of more than $6.3 billion, the most successful franchise in the history of movies comes to an obligatory -- and quite satisfying -- conclusion in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. Fully justifying the decision, once thought purely mercenary, of splitting J.K. Rowling's final book into two parts, this is an exciting and, to put it mildly, massively eventful finale that will grip and greatly please anyone who has been at all a fan of the series up to now. If ever there was a sure thing commercially, this stout farewell is it.
Technically, nothing has been held back. The eventual sight of Hogwarts as a crumbled ruin is striking, Eduardo Serra's cinematography outclasses what he accomplished the last time out, and some of Nick Dudman's makeup effects -- especially with the goblins and a shocking glimpse of a fetal Voldemort -- are sensational. Alexandre Desplat's score is arguably the best yet for the series, briefly incorporating echoes of John Williams' original themes while richly boosting the already heightened drama of this sendoff to such a tremendously successful series.
All that's missing is an official “The End” after the final image.
With the million awful, tacky, shrill, stupid, condescending, tasteless, “Eragon”-y things that could have gone wrong over the 10 years and eight movies that brought J.K. Rowling’s mega-popular Harry Potter series to the big screen, it’s practically a statistical anomaly that the final entry, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2,” brings its A-game from start to finish.
If there’s one substantial flaw to the film, it’s that this cavalcade of people and places and objects can barely fit in the 130-minute running time. Looking forward to the emotional culmination of the courtship between Harry and Ginny Weasley (Bonnie Wright)? Well, tough.
"It all ends," says the poster slogan. A potentially grim statement of the obvious, of course, yet the Potter saga could hardly have ended on a better note. With one miraculous flourish of its wand, the franchise has restored the essential magic to the Potter legend – which had been starting to sag and drift in recent movies – zapping us all with a cracking final chapter, which looks far superior to CS Lewis's The Last Battle or JRR Tolkien's The Return of the King. It's dramatically satisfying, spectacular and terrifically exciting, easily justifying the decision to split the last book into two.
This is such an entertaining, beguiling, charming and exciting picture. It reminded me of the thrill I felt on seeing the very first one, 10 years ago. And Radcliffe's Harry Potter has emerged as a complex, confident, vulnerable, courageous character – most likable, sadly, at the point where we must leave him for ever. Wait. I've got that darn thing in my eye again ...
This is monumental cinema, awash with gorgeous tones, and carrying an ultimate message that will resonate with every viewer, young or old: there is darkness in all of us, but we can overcome it.
The film versions of JK Rowling’s stories have enthralled me, and I watched them with child-like wonder...The final film chapter had me literally sitting on the edge of my seat at times, particularly in the scene where Harry, Ron and Hermione (who for reasons too complicated to go into here has to look like Bellatrix Lestrange) break into a bank and escape over the London skyline on the back of a fire-breathing dragon.
It's taken 10 years and nearly 20 hours of screen time for J.K. Rowling's towering fantasy saga to reach its cinematic conclusion. Yet as the final incantation is spoken and the curtain falls on the highest-grossing franchise in movie history, more than a few viewers may be left wondering: Why the rush? The series' shortest entry at 131 minutes, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2" surges ahead with tremendous urgency, superb spectacle and powerful, even overwhelming emotion, only to falter with a hasty sendoff that seems to buckle under the weight of audience expectations. Tears will be shed as fans bid farewell to Hogwarts, but catharsis remains just out of reach.
In keeping with its predecessors, "Part 2" delivers below-the-line work of an immaculate standard. The visual effects are so deftly and artfully handled that the magic seems almost commonplace, and Alexandre Desplat's fine score incorporates a gratifying blast of John Williams' familiar themes and, most poignantly, a mournful Nicholas Hooper composition from the sixth pic. D.p. Eduardo Serra's brooding, beautiful work gains little, however, from the underwhelming stereoscopic conversion; this is the first Potter film to be released entirely in 3D as well as 2D, and on this count, at least, one can be grateful that it will be the last.