Brotherly Dispute:Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II (Part II)

   Before I begin let me make one thing clear, I am not, as has been suggested, a boring old fart or a killjoy, I am not someone who sees themselves as being ‘above’ films like Harry Potter. In short, I am not a snob. (I’m watching an episode of Thunderbirds as I write this.) The most confusing thing about the HP7.5 debate is that I liked Part one, it didn’t blow me away but as a non-potter fan it intrigued and excited me, it did something new and for that I was grateful and, most importantly of all, excited to see Part two. And a week or so ago I did just that. I went to go see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. My brain was open; I was ready to embrace the excitement and wonder of the finale of the greatest story about a scarred boy wizard that this world has ever seen. Alas, it was not to be. 

DRACO MALFOY AND THE MIS-FIRING PUNCHLINES.

Right from the get-go when Harry mumbled “I have to see the goblin” the seed of concern had already been planted.  This is one of the problems I find with Harry Potter in general, it treads such an odd line, a line I like to call the “can I laugh at this?” line. There were many moments in 7pt.2 that teetered dangerously on this line. Draco’s parents beckoning him to join them with Voldermort, Voldermort’s super villain laugh when he announced the death of Harry, Neville’s laborious dialogue, the pantomimic malevolence of Draco’s cronies,  the stilted cameos from “those famous people you know and love”, everygoddamnthing the presumably baked Luna Lovegood does, Julie Walters walking behind Maggie Smith with her trademarked “perturbed mother” look and finally, Draco and his family awkwardly walking away once all the commotion had died down. I could go on but I think that would be overegging the point slightly. Now, I understand that I could’ve just laughed at these bits and thought no more of it but they didn’t feel like jokes, they didn’t feel like moments designed for mirth and annoyingly the moments that felt like planned jokes weren’t funny. It’s a niggling point but I feel that good action flicks need some moments of mirth and laughter & if the moments of mirth and laughter are specifically tailored to “fans” or simply miss the mark then it’s quite a letdown. I mean use Ron more, Ron’s well funny all he seemed to do in this film was neck Hermione.

ALAN RICKMAN AND THE OBLIGATORY FAMOUS CAMEOS.

“Oh my god, is that Alan Rickman sneering on those battlements?”, “my word, is that whatchamacallher who took the class they did in the second film?”, “blow me sideways, there’s that guy from the fast show who is the dad of the gaggle of ginger wizards!” and so on and so forth. One thing this film felt like it wanted to do was blast a great big air horn whenever a famous face from the other films appeared, the scenes in the great hall where Harry wandered around and looked forlornly at all the crap Voldermort stirred up were an exercise in LOOK WHO WE GOT BACK and not at all focussed on the emotions and feeling behind it all. It felt like all the famous faces had some kind of clause in their contract whereby they had to return in the final film even if there straight up wasn’t a place for them. This wasn’t a problem in Part One, when Dobby showed up he served a purpose, kicked ass and then died. Boom, cameo done, unlike a part two cameo which consisted of either appearing in the background to the action or sweeping shots of Jim Broadbent looking confused. This brings me to one of the moments in HP7.5 that made me feel actually queasy. I love Alan Rickman, he is awesome, Die Hard would not be the awesome Christmas action flick that it is without the supreme talents of Alan Rickman and his glorious eastern European terrorist head honcho Hans. In short, he’s awesome. But he was ruined in this film, RUINED, they did to Alan Rickman what Spielberg and Lucas did to Indy in the goddamn Crystal abomination. They turned him into a laughable shell of over the top malevolence punishing him with boring, boring dialogue and bits of directions that must’ve simply been “say that speech really really really slowly. Yeah, like one line per second. Yeah do it like a parody of yourself. Perfect.” The two worst instances of this were when Snape warned all the assembled wizards that harbouring Potter would be a bad thing, a speech that must’ve been 2 lines on paper was… drawn… out… in (breath) such a (evil look) laborious… manner… as to (panning shot of scared wizards) make… it (hair flick) laughable. Seriously, I felt like I was watching a French and Saunders parody of Severus Snape. Second instance fell in Snape’s final confrontation with Voldermort and their 5 minutes of dialogue, sorry not dialogue – repetition. “Who does this wand truly answer to?” “You my Lord.” “Yes, Snape, but who really can command this wand?” “You my lord” “but if I were to command it, would it bow to me.” “you, my lord.” “If I were to place this very wand….” You get the picture. Dire dire direlogue. Rickman deserved better.

DAVID YATES AND THE EXPECTING YOU TO GIVE A CRAP.

  Ultimately my problem with Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part Two was that you weren’t made to care about the plight of the characters you were expected to. It was lazy, we were expected to all be loyal potter fans who would roll over and bray happily at the conveyor belt of faces and places we recognized, and the second you know your audience will care you stop trying to make them care. An unforgivable crime in cinema, at least in my eyes.

Maybe though it all made for a rad Harry Potter film, maybe if I got into it more and watched them all and read the books and drew a lightning bolt on my forehead I’d have enjoyed it like everyone else. Alas. I think the film can best be summed up by the thoughts of someone I went to see the film with “It’s the final Harry Potter, I loved it. Even if it had been a big picture of a poo for 2 hours I’d have loved it!”

SO