A wise English proverb once dictated that all good things must come to an end. Ten years on from the release of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, the eighth and final Harry Potter film is released.
The producers at Warner Brothers made the money-savvy choice of splitting Deathly Hallows into two films, which led to a sort of Kill Bill effect – one film was all highs, the other all lows. However, they did it the right way round, with the first instalment of Deathly Hallows boring people to near-death. This meant that the rollercoaster of visual pyrotechnics, character relationships and the final countdown between Harry and Voldemort was saved for the second film. And what a finale it is.
It would be optimistic to say that the three leads have particularly bettered over the ten years. Daniel Radcliffe still strikes me as awful impassive, spending much of the film looking baffled or bemused. When he is required to give a performance of emotional gravitas, he borders on overacting.
However, if he is on the cusp of ham, Emma Watson is a fully-fledged bacon, once again letting her eyebrows do the acting, acting.
