It’s a dark, dark world out there for muggles and mudbloods. Luckily, there’s hope - a pasty, glasses-wearing, really sort of geeky-looking hero is the chosen one with the power to save them all.
The penultimate instalment to the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, hit theatres last week, depicting a wizarding world that has descended into black chaos. Although this movie has a PG-13 tag, it’s not for the very young or the very weak-hearted, what with snakes swallowing humans, murder, kidnapping and torture. This bleak new world order comes courtesy of the evil wizard Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters, who have taken control of the Ministry of Magic, Hogwarts School and turned our idyllic visions of school in Great Britain into a twisted world of death and deception.
But Harry Potter, along with his friends Ron and Hermione, have all grown up, and dressed up in their cute cable-knit sweaters, they’re ready to try and find the clues to kill Voldemort and restore harmony to the world.
The movie faces a challenge – much of the book is bogged down in Harry and his friends killing time trying to find a way to kill Voldemort. The second hour sags a bit under this weight. But director David Yates has done a good job of avoiding monotony by throwing in a fight scene or motorcycle chase or giant snake trying to catch its next meal into the movie every half hour or so. He also injects genuine emotion into the series, and scenes like the death of Dobby the elf actually brought a tear to my eye. A clever animation scene depicting The Tale of the Three Brothers also speaks to some creativity on Yates’ part.
But Yates has been dealt one killer hand. He gets to work with an all-star cast of tremendous British talent, like Ralph Fiennes, with his noseless and reptilian Lord Voldemort (who scared me every time I saw him on screen), and Helena Bonham Carter, who seems to bite into the role of Death Eater Bellatrix Lestrange with particular relish. Who can blame her – which of us wouldn’t like to zap our enemies with a wooden stick once in a while?
It’s not just simple villainy either – never has the darker theme of ethnic cleansing (i.e. the killing of mudbloods and muggles) and the storyline’s echoing of Nazi Germany been more evident in the Potter films.
Is this movie a stupendous, knock-your-socks off amazement? Because it is only half a movie, no, it just can’t be – but Part 1 sets us up for the final Harry Potter with a promise to blow us away. Now it remains to be seen if the final movie and Harry Potter will deliver on that promise for dazzling blockbuster entertainment, while also delivering the Muggles and Mudblood from evil wizardry and Lord Voldemort.
Three stars out of five
