Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011)

Directed by:  David Yates

Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint

This was definitely the superior film of the two parts. Except… I can’t be the only one who gets sad at Ralph Fiennes, who played the amazingly evil SS officer in Schindler’s List, reduced to hissing and yelling “KILL HARRY POTTER” while waving a wand around like an idiot? Voldemort really is an ineffective villain for being in such a hugely popular series.

Harry and friends finish finding Voldemort’s evil lucky charms and destroying them in time for him to mount a full-scale attack on the magic school with his army of apparently thousands of evil wizards. There’s a big fight and all the old characters come back for a cameo, but it all comes down to the bad guy and Harry Potter fighting it out. Of course, the good guy wins. What, did you think this was complicated literature?

I admit that I’m just trolling now, but still, this wasn’t the best movie in the world. Thanks to Peter Jackson, the required length of any fantasy battle sequence is an hour and a half, which is about six times longer than you can really get away with while still keeping it interesting. Also, there’s this stupid part where Harry dies and goes to a train station in heaven, but it turns out he didn’t die because the bad guy’s wand didn’t like him very much. That was extremely retarded.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010)

Directed by: David Yates

Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint

Having watched both parts of this movie back to back, I feel pretty safe in saying that it wasn’t really necessary to split it up into two pieces, because basically nothing happens for most of this film. Which is, I’m sure, just a huge surprise to everybody. Next you’re going to tell me that The Hobbit doesn’t need to be split in two parts!

The evil fish-faced Ralph Fiennes is back in full force, and Harry Potter has to find the three magical lucky charms with his soul in them so he can break them and win for magic. He and his friends have some gunfights… er… wandfights with the baddies and find one of the things, then they sit around and camp out for a couple months. Finally they get caught by Helena Bonham Carter (who, against type, is a crazy evil lady who wears black and has an insane hairdo) but are transported out by Jar-Jar-ex-machina. I’m not the only one who associates that little “Dobbie” guy with Jar-Jar, right? They’re both goddamn annoying.

I obviously didn’t like this movie very much. I didn’t read the books and I’m not a superfan or anything, but I know a poorly-paced movie when I see one. Also, I was really disappointed that most of the magic in the film was replaced by wands shooting little magic bullet things. Why were they guns? Aren’t people supposed to say fake latin while they use magic? Is that just like, the default setting of a wand or something? Why give up on an established concept SEVEN MOVIES IN?