Here we are, about four weeks after Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 has come out and I'm finally getting around to posting about it. Well, it can't have been that great then, eh? Nope. Plus, well, other things distracted me, like the visual art scene. Three of us went downtown to catch it on the first Saturday night. Coming into the theater, we brought our own goods, of course: Brookside Dark Chocolate Pomegranate and yes, Jones Soda -- Green Apple and Blue Bubblegum flavours.
The state of the seats directly in front of us foreshadowed our overall view of the movie. Busted and out of order, management taped them up in black garbage bags. Sure, HP installments have always been filmed in rather dark tones to match the whole black and white fight between good and evil, but never before did we find the magic within broken.
It came across as if the actors, especially the younger ones, phoned in their roles. Tired, weary, and emotionless. Honestly, I felt more sentimental before I entered the theater and bought my ticket. After ten years of Bertie Bott's Jelly Beans and the Weasley twins' antics and the crazed killer actions of Bellatrix Lestrange, a sadness in saying goodbye surrounded me like an Invisibility Cloak.
Good thing I bought a giant bag of popcorn and my friend supplied the Brookside chocolates. I couldn't get enough of those. Yummy, I thought about them as I bit and chewed them instead of focusing on the dull rapport between even Hermione and Ron. So much for screen chemistry.
Now, the electricity and passion that Alan Rickman infused Snape with, well, that became the best part of the whole experience. More please. Oh, it's too late. And when Molly Weasley took down Bellatrix, I actually thought, Why, Voldemort, why? Boring as bloody hell. Characters like Bellatrix needed more screen time--and so did Malfoy.
Oh, they could have done so much more with this movie. Instead, they turned it into a sleep-walker of blandness. When favourite characters like Fred died, they didn't show it and only briefly did the camera pause on them. So much wasted potential.
Aside from Snape's love for Lily, the presentation fell flat. I can't say it enough. Even the epic final battle landed on its head. Devoid of emotion, poorly choreographed, and far from memorable, it came across like bits of World War II reenactments, the Luke/Darth Vader sword battle of the Star Wars series, and, well, a knock-off of Lord of the Rings.
Sure, you can try and guilt me: it's the last movie, don't you feel the sadness, the tears rolling down your cheeks? No, but I did and do long for the magic of earlier HP movies.
And then to add insult to injury, the production offered us some cheap makeup and clothes in the so-called aging of the main characters, Ron, Harry, Hermione, and Draco. Seriously? The HP machine has brought in buckets of money over the past decade; you'd think that they could spare a couple bucks to make them credible grown ups. Hell, even bad wigs and properly angled stage lights would have worked better.
Walking out of the theater, we felt so empty. Just as the author, J. K. Rowling, squashed further sequels by throwing a bland coda on the end, the series finale killed it by erasing the spirit that soared in earlier parts.
Ratings:
HPATDHP2: 6.5 / 10 - Somewhat lackluster and anticlimactic, but Snape and Voldemort saved it.
Brookside Dark Chocolate Pomegranate: 8 / 10 - A tasty mix of cocoa and pomegranate juice.
