The last installment in the gigantic franchise Harry Potter was... Ok I guess?
Don't get me wrong here, I like Harry Potter. I was 11 when I read the first book and as such I've grown up with books and to a lesser extent the movies. The prior movies were good, especially the third and onward when they decided to go down a darker route. But these last movies and the very last in particular don't have the volume to stand on their own.
This movie was actually pretty bad, almost all characters apart from Harry Potter, Snape and Dumbledore had more than a handful of lines and most of the shots were typically Harry talking to another character with a host of supporting characters standing around watching the drama. And somehow the director thought it'd be a smart idea to try to cram in a few haphazard bad jokes between the very serious scenes which might have worked in the previous films but in this felt very forced and in some parts ruined the otherwise heavy tension.
This movie was actually pretty bad, almost all characters apart from Harry Potter, Snape and Dumbledore had more than a handful of lines and most of the shots were typically Harry talking to another character with a host of supporting characters standing around watching the drama. And somehow the director thought it'd be a smart idea to try to cram in a few haphazard bad jokes between the very serious scenes which might have worked in the previous films but in this felt very forced and in some parts ruined the otherwise heavy tension.
Nonetheless, the movie had it's good parts as well as it's bad parts. The good parts being chiefly those with Alan Rickman (Snape) who has portrayed his character wonderfully throughout the series.
The bad parts were unfortunately the rest, the parts with Dumbledores past was not thoroughly fleshed out which kind of led to a "That's all you had to say about that?". And the stick-measuring contest of Potter vs Voldemort was surprisingly un-engaging, especially the finale left me dumbfounded. "Wow. That's it? That's REALLY it?" Sadly even the CGI was decent at best this time around which is a shame because that's something they have always nailed pretty darned good in previous installments.
Overall the whole movie felt pretty OK. It was nowhere a very good movie and not even close to being the best Harry Potter movie but it was adequate as the ending of biggest movie franchise (within a single continuity) in Hollywood's history.
Oh and before I forget it. The ending was something that worked in the book but not in the movie. It was goofy and a bit funny thinking "well, that's probably how they're going to look in 20 years what with all the botox and shit" but in the book it had somewhat of an emotional value showing how they all moved on, something that was utterly unnecessary in this case. Hopefully it was all intentional and played tongue-in-cheek(which ironically would be one of the better parts of the movie if that was true) because I laughed at it, not out loud of course. But in my head.
Verdict: Watched the previous Harry Potter movies? Go see it dammit. Didn't? Well you probably should, but if you don't then I guess you have your reasons for not liking this movie already.
