harry potter deathly hallows part 2 full movie

Some will, no doubt, enjoy the extra dimension (just as Warner Bros will, no doubt, enjoy the extra moolah it generates), but I wouldn’t have thought you’d be missing out should you prompt to go for a glasses-free 2D screening. You might question the logic of converting a film with such a sombre palette into 3D, but a colour-saturated childhood flashback sequence and some mightily impressive cursed fire came across a treat. The talented David Yates, as we suspected he might, resisted any urge to have wands jutting out in the audience’s faces every five minutes. I’ll say now that the 3D wasn’t overplayed either. It’s no doubt due to the strength of these moments that makes it something of a frustration when our attention is snatched away from whizz-bang fighting, and made to follow Harry off in search of a magical doodad or heartbreaking revelation about a former adversary. In small moments such as this, the film is simply stunning. The action is to be applauded as everything you could ask it to be: sleek, fast and exciting, especially in scenes showing the flight of a couple locked in combat zooming around the castle, or a trio on broomsticks pursued by Fiendfyre. There’s a fantastic CGI dragon (the best you’ll see this year, and probably for a good while after) careening weightily over the London skyline, hefty statues stamping into life, enchantments and curses being sent whomping and fizzing around the sets, and a magical, jellyfish-like protective shield rippling and flexing around the castle grounds. Though no one sequence stands out in the same way as did Part 1‘s animated three brothers tale (an artfully atmospheric lantern silhouette segment telling the story of the titular Deathly Hallows), Part 2 does have many, many impressive kinetic set pieces.

It’s just a shame we have our attention so frequently diverted away, instead of getting stuck in to the action for so much of it. When the long-anticipated battle of Hogwarts erupts, there comes bravura moment after bravura moment from the visual effects and design teams. That said, the spectacle here is staggeringly well done, if a little frustrating for coming in fits and starts around the lead’s emotional trek into death and back again.

Harry potter deathly hallows part 2 full movie