Harry Potter 7.2
I saw the final Harry Potter film on Friday. While overall it was an enjoyable film to watch, I was pretty disappointed with it, or more specifically the last 15 minutes. My gripes were:
- In the “limbo” scene they don’t mention that the reason Harry sort of survived is because part of him was living in Voldemort, as well as part of Voldemort being in him. No explanation given for how Harry survived.
- Having Harry spring to life in front of everyone was naff, leading to an silly chase scene between him and Voldemort like some B grade action flick – especially the wrestling each other off the tower.
- The whole point of Harry going invisible and staying presumed dead is so that his friends fighting on is even more heroic – they would rather die fighting than surrender to tyranny.
- The Molly Weasley v Bellatrix Lestrange scene failed to capture it as well as the book. Lestrange is second only to Voldermort in power on the evil side. In the book they describe her fighting three female wizards at once, to get across how formidable she is. That makes it all the more powerful when Molly Weasley charges in seeing Ginny at risk, and kills her after being taunted over her son’s death.
- Likewise in the book Harry shows himself only when Voldemort is about to kill Molly for killing Bellatrix. And in the book almost all other fighting stops to watch the final battle between the two main characters. In the film due to their silly brawl they are fighting outside, with almost no witnesses or sense of majesty.
The annoying thing about all the deviations is they were not necessary. J K Rowling write the final scenes perfectly for a movie. They did not need any change or editing. The changes they did, were not about making it shorter – we’re talking a few minutes only. It was just that they failed to get that emotional climax that Rowling did in the book.
So if you have seen the other movies, go see this one. But it was not a worthy ending to the most popular books and films in history. I guess it shows the difference between a genius producer/director like Peter Jackson who can take a hugely complicated plot, and still produce a stunning film, and other producers and directors who make a technically proficient film, but not a glorious film.