Harry Potter Review

We saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2 yesterday.  I’m a huge fan of the books, less so the movies. I didn’t discover them until college, shortly before book 5 came out. I remember skipping class one spring semester to read more of book 4.  They’re not the greatest piece of literature ever written, but it’s just fun and grabs your attention so you want to keep reading. Which I think is the most important part of a good book.

We didn’t bother seeing the first part in the theater, opting to see it through Netflix just a few weeks ago. It was good, ranking in the top half of the movies, though, this adaption was less true to the book than part 1 was. This review will focus on the two movies together.

Likes

• They pulled off the pacing of the book pretty well. The part where they were on the run felt long without becoming boring.
• The shield around Hogwarts and the spell artillery barrage was a good way to visualizing a part that wasn’t well described in the book.
• The confrontation with Malfoy in the Room of Requirements I think was done pretty well.
• “You Bitch”
• Hedgewig’s death. Much better for her to die fighting then just falling dead in her cage.

Dislikes

• The extended snake sequence. When Neville gives that speech to Voldemort, he really should have pulled the sword out and sliced the snakes head off right there. Much more dramatic. Harry coming back to life then ruined Neville’s moment and wasn’t true to the story.
• The confrontation with Snape in the hall with all of the students and then Harry appears. That was just dumb.
• Also dumb, they didn’t try and get the young kids to safety.
• They completely dropped the story about Harry doubting Dumbledore and Dumbledore’s history. Now, that would be hard to translate to the movie but I think it was an important element of the story. It’s an important element towards maturity. When you’re young, your heroes are idealistic and perfect. In time, you eventually discover they aren’t perfect and can be devastating. Eventually coming to terms with this, and recognizing that they weren’t perfect, but were still worth respecting because of this, is something not every does. Some people don’t make it past the first stage and just blindly believe some people are perfect. Others, become cynical and don’t trust anyone. Accepting that people aren’t perfect, but the ones who try and work past their flaws are the people to idealize, is a sign of maturity. And since these books are all about growing up, that’s an important theme to drop.
• The Deathly Hallows were even more irrelevant in the movie than they were in the book.
• Harry’s fight with Voldemort. It wasn’t in front of anyone and was to long. Calling Voldemort “Tom” in front of everyone was reminiscent of Dumbledore and a way of demystifying him. The whole deal with Expelliarmus didn’t play a role which I thought was important to Harry’s character.

Now I may have more dislikes than likes, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy the movie. For fun, below are my rankings of the books vs movies. This will end my Harry Potter Geekiness (for now).

Movies

1. Half Blood Prince (this hit all the main points and cut as little as possible and it wasn’t my favorite book)
2. Order of the Phoenix
3. Deathly Hallows part 1
4. Deathly Hallows part 2
5. Prisoner of Azkaban
6. Sorcerer’s Stone (this was the most true to the books, but this was the shortest book)
7. Chamber of Secrets
8. Goblet of Fire (this one just sucked)

Books

1. Goblet of Fire (since this was my favorite book, its no surprise I’m most critical of the movie)
2. Order of the Phoenix
3. Deathly Hallows
4. Prisoner of Azkaban
5. Half Blood Prince
6. Sorcerer’s Stone
7. Chamber of Secrets (In the end, this one turned out to contain some pretty important elements to the overarching story when as a stand alone book its mostly forgettable)