Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 Movie review

You'll be biting your Goblin fingernails right up to the very end of this last movie in JK Rowling's magical series of stories about our favorite wizard, Harry Potter and his battles against the evil Voldemort, the murderer of his parents. The end of a saga is like returning from a long journey. The trip was long, wandering and surprising but you're glad to be going home and back to your regular life.

We owe a great debt to JK Rowling and her series of books which have entranced a generation (and their parents). We have watched the trio of characters and the actors playing them (Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter, Emma Watson as Hermione Granger and Rupert Grint as Ron Weasley) mature as magicians and teenagers.

As the last Harry Potter film, Part 2 of the Deathly Hallows, the audience has been primed and ready for this moment and the box office will not disappoint the producers. Outside of comic books spawning mega-hits such as the Batman movies or Spider Man films, or the current British champion of books and screen, the enduringly-charming Bond, James Bond, Harry Potter has been the billion dollar box office baby. Like his signature forehead scar, lightning strikes again with this finale to a great theatrical run. Movies have been good to authors, but few have transformed the market and audiences as quickly as Harry Potter and JK Rowling, transformed from trailer park queen to stately mansion madam in a brief decade.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 satisfies audiences on so many levels, from setting the final battle back at Hogwarts School (after roaming the countryside in Part 1) and bringing the long cast of characters back for extended cameos, from nasty Bellatrix Lestrange to big, lovable Rubeus Hagrid, we get resolution of a score of relationships that have been hanging about like bats in the lair of the Basilisk.

Author JK Rowling has introduced a whole new wizards and muggles language and this will be the last time we'll be hearing about horcruxes and hallows, sorting hats and Slitherins. In fact, it may be the end of magic movies for a while, as this franchise has been an endurance test for most people. I'm satisfied but relieved to see the end of Hogwarts School and those drearly Quidditch matches, to name just one of the irritants in this series for me. However, all is forgiven as loose ends gets tied into love knots and evil is finally vanquished (hope you didn't think Voldemort was going to win). Now we can all hand over our billion dollars to JK Rowling and call it a wrap.