Ok, so I just saw Deathly Hallows part 2 and my overall one word reaction is ... meh. It wasn't bad, but really, it wasn't worth splitting the book into two movies for this.
Brief: (no spoilers)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 is just what it says it is in the title... part 2. It starts where part one leaves off and just hits the ground running. There's very little build-up towards anything, which I personally felt took away from the impact of the movie a little bit. They could have spent more time setting things up.
The story covers the last third of the book, and most of it is the final battle, so it is filled with action, but again, maybe because of the lack of build-up, I didn't find myself caring too much during the battle. There wasn't as much... emotion. Everything was fast paced and many cool scenes were there, but I feel that there was essential emotion from the book that the movie lacked because of some of the scenes that they took out.
Alan Rickman delivers an amazing performance as Severus Snape. His scenes were the only points in the movie when I found my eyes glued to the screen and when I felt like I cared about the outcome. Neville had some good moments, but I honestly expected way more. Maggie Smith was, as usual, very underused as McGonagall... I don't understand why they don't give the woman more lines... but the parts she did get she was awesome.
The ending was... interesting. I hated that part of the book, but I was interested to see how they pulled it off for the movie and it was honestly not bad.
Overall, I would recommend watching Part 1 right before you go see this, just to refresh your memory and maybe coax a little emotional involvement back before you go watch the way it all ends. It wasn't bad, but it could have been so much better and I'm still hoping for that fan remake. Also, if you haven't already, then don't watch any of the trailers before seeing this - they spoiled too much of the movie with those.
Detailed Highlights (MASSIVE SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT):
- I love how they started with Dobby's grave, clearly showing the inscription.
- Shell Cottage was weird and too quick. They should have spent a bit more time and done it properly, showing all the planning that went into it.
- I would love to know why they decided that the word Horcrux could just be thrown around in front of people who aren't supposed to know about them and why Ollivander knew about the Deathly Hallows. It's stupid.
- Gringotts was too fast. Helena Bonham Carter playing Hermione disguised as Bellatrix was kind of funny, but the rest of it was rushed.
- The dragon, in 3D, was interesting enough to make me think ("I can't wait to see Smaug in the Hobbit - they should shoot it in 3D!) but it really wasn't as awesome as I would have wanted a dragon scene to be.
- Luna was cool, and I don't mind the change they made to the whole Diadem section, but, again, it struck me as just being an excuse to rush along the plotline.
- I felt NOTHING when Fred died... except frustration at the movie makers. We were supposed to see that scene, see how it happened, watch Percy's reaction, etc. I felt robbed. Especially since Percy was THERE, in the background, saying and doing absolutely nothing.
- Snape was, again, amazing. Alan Rickman is just perfect for Snape and I felt myself tearing up in the whole sequence where he dies and then in parts of the Prince's Tale. However, I didn't like that the memories were just two tiny teardrops... You could barely see them. Also, I was frustrated by the fact that they cut out so many scenes from the Prince's Tale.
- I'm not fond of any of the young kids from the Prince's Tale. I guess that for me they needed to do some good acting to convince me that these were actually the characters, but not enough time was spent on this to allow for ANY kind of acting. It was something of a blur.
- I found myself kind of... bored during the battle scenes. Honestly. It may be the emotion thing again, but I really did not care...
- Just like in the book there wasn't enough (or any) time spent on recovering from the battle, rebuilding, etc. They didn't even show Neville being all popular/the hero with the sword by his side, which would have been cool.
- The Epilogue was strange. They all looked quite convincing as parents, which was surprising. So not too bad despite the fact that I hated it in the book. I guess that's one scene that works for the movie and not for the book.
World-Building Rating:
I'm going to have to give Part 2 a world building rating of Shoddy. It's not that the special effects weren't nice, or whatever, but there was something missing... a movie made up of the final battle and the Gringotts scene really needed to do more in terms of the backdrop and the world-building.
No comments:
Post a Comment