Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 closed out the series in fine fashion. Super attack on Hogwarts, character redemption's, dragons, flames, ghosts, explosions, love and sacrifice. I would watch it again. And this comes from someone who hasn't cared for the series at all.
I would announce that this is a spoiler alert, but most of the people reading this have probably already read the book and know how it ends. As such, I will say that according to all of the status updates on Facebook from Potter fans, they got everything right. As for me, I wouldn't have noticed. Here is the nondescript action movie run down.
Lord Voldermort (plaid brilliantly by Ralph Fiennes) steals the super Elder wand from the grave of a powerful wizard. He now has what he needs to destroy the hero, Harry Potter.
Harry, Ron and Hermione (Daniel Radcliffe, Rupurt Grint and Emma Watson) devise a plan to get the last piece of the deathly hallows which includes the Elder wand, cloak of invisibility and cup of resurrection.) This requires help from a troll. From myths and legends, trolls have never been the most trustworthy of creatures and it was proven once again. Inside the vault, Hermione bumps one of the valuables which hits the floor and starts replicating suddenly filling up the room. Harry gets the cup of resurrection and then becomes buried underneath the pile of valuables. He breaks out in heroic fashion and the troll promptly takes cup to make the exchange for a special sword.
So the troll gets away and here come the wizard police shooting at Harry and friends while they try to escape. Hermione comes up with a plan to use the big ol' dragon in the middle of the area. they hop on it's back, break it's chains and fly out of there leaving a path of destruction behind them.
Fast forward past some dramatic moments where they get back to the wizard realm, run into some folks, make their way back into Hogwarts, boost morale of the kids and make a grand appearance after the second bad guy in command, Professor Snape, summons all the kids to threaten them if Harry Potter shows up and no one says anything. Tadaa! Harry shows up.
Another professor defends Harry, running Snape off. Voldermort's essence makes a couple of girls scream and he says he'll leave everyone alone if they give him Harry Potter. Like that's gonna happen. Professors set up a force field around Hogwarts and guard the entrance with stone warriors. Voldermort and a crew of baddies launch a '300' style attack firing wand blasts at the force field. No luck. Harry goes off on a mission to find various jewels that can destroy Voldermort. Ron and Hermione strike the resurrection cup with the tooth of a basilisk. Didn't really understand that part, but the wall of water that blew across them provided for one of those "we almost died" make out sessions between the two. Whatever happened, Voldermort strikes the force field with a wand blast that destroys the force field and cracks the wand while he's at it.
The attack begins. Massive ogres vs stone warriors. A bunch of werewolf type witches and warlocks get blown up on the rear bridge entrance. Chaos ensues. Harry realizes that he must destroy the snake that follows Voldermort before he can take him out. A trip through front battle lines leads to a boat house where Voldermort sends his snake to attack Snape. Why? Power, of course. Since Snape killed Dumbledore, that means Voldermort has to kill Snape for the wand to obey him. Harry and friends hide while this happens and creep in just in time to get a couple tear drops from Snape before he dies.
Voldermort sends out another round of mental messages for his troops to retreat and for Harry to meet him in the woods for a final showdown. Classic, ain't it? Harry drops the tears in a plate of water and dunks his head in. We get to see how Snape falls in love and protects Lilly, Harry's mother, and then gets tossed aside as she falls for the guy who would become Harry's father. I feel for ya, Snape. Hate it when that happens. Nice guys finish last.
We also get to see how Harry's parents were murdered by Voldermort and the scar on Harry's forehead is actually a ricochet from Voldermort's wand as he killed Lilly. Snape finds the dead bodies and makes a deal with Dumbledore to save Harry. So Snape wasn't all bad. But he's dead. That's usually how it works. He got redemption.
Harry heads to the woods. Voldermort pops him with a super blast dropping both of them. Harry has that white room is-this-heaven type talk with Dumbledore and plays dead til Voldermort and crew take him back to Hogwarts to declare their supremacy.
Voldermort breaks out into a "Harry's dead! Join me" type speech. One of the kids steps forward and gives a rousing diatribe about how Harry will always be with them and proceeds to pull the same sword that the troll had out of a hat and promptly gets sent flying by Voldermort's wand blast. Braveheart moment denied. Harry springs back to life and takes off running. Battle ensues again.
Voldermort goes after Harry. The snake goes after Ron and Hermione. After a fun wizardry duel, Harry grabs Voldermort and is prepared to die by sending them both off of a ledge. They fly all over the place trying to rip the faces off each other and land back at the court yard where they scramble for their wands and fire at each other. The kid sword wakes just in time to cut the head off the snake as it dives for Ron and Hermione. Voldermort feels the pain of the snake dying after a test of wills fire blast with Harry.
Voldermort gives it the ol' college try one more time and loses his life and wand in the process. Pieces of him chip away into oblivion. The good guys win. Harry breaks the Elder wand and tosses it off the bridge, gives a little bit of a speech and the 3 friends hold hands while staring off into the distance.
I deliberately left out a couple moments because it's actually worth paying for (2D version is what I saw). You have the story in a nutshell. It follows a pretty standard action script. Most of the back story can be recapped here.
I say it's definitely a summer movie worth watching even if you haven't seen the other films or are interested in Harry Potter. It may not be in the same category, but this is better than Thor and Green Lantern.
That said... I'm still not a Harry Potter fan, but it has definitely earned my respect.
*Image courtesy CNN/Warner Brothers
Harry Potter fans flock to premiere
1 comments:
Lmao! Either they got the movie very wrong, or your facts are very wrong. In the book, at least, the cup is a horcrux and a goblin helps them get it. Its also the stone of ressurection, not the cup of ressurection. After that, I was laughing too hard to continue reading.
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