This is the eighth and final Harry Potter movie. It’s also the worst. That’s no great surprise, because this series has always been better at making promises than delivering the goods. For 10 years now we’ve been saying (or some of us have been saying) that the Harry Potter films spend far more time filling in back-story than actually moving the plot forward; that Harry himself, for such a special boy, never seems to do anything; that the whole saga seems predicated on some future confrontation that’ll only kick off when something else happens – when Harry’s ‘ready’, when he’s amassed all the Horcruxes, whatever. Now, however, the waiting is over. The franchise must deliver, whether it wants to or not. Result? Harry Potter and the Lame Action Movie.
Maybe they should’ve changed directors – because David Yates, who directed the last four Potters, is adept at atmospheric moping, as he showed last year in the (far superior) Deathly Hallows: Part 1 and shows again in the first few minutes of this one. Alan Rickman looking moody at a castle window. The gang – Harry, Ron, Hermione – looking worried in a “safe house”, with the Order of the Phoenix disbanded and Voldemort coming ever closer. Furtive conversations. Harry silhouetted at the top of the stairs. This is all good stuff – but then moping turns to action, and directing action is a whole other talent. Maybe the producers should’ve splashed out on Peter Jackson of Lord of the Rings fame, just for this one instalment.
Sometimes the problem is a lack of follow-through, cool ideas left hanging (this may also be a problem with the books, which I haven’t read). Take the scene where Harry asks the ghostly “Grey Lady” for advice on how to find a diadem (one of the so-called Horcruxes), for instance. There’s a lot of build-up – elfin Luna explains how to approach the Lady, then Harry must persuade the mournful phantom to divulge her secret – but all she ends up saying is that the diadem is hidden “where everything is hidden”, and even when our hero deciphers the location (the “Room of Secrets”) it’s not clear how he manages to find the diadem in that vast warehouse space. Or take the scene where he looks for a Horcrux in a goblin-run vault, and comes up against a spell that doubles everything he touches: one gold cup becomes two gold cups, then four, then eight and so on. Before long, the pile of mutating treasure threatens to fill the whole room, burying the gang beneath it. They find the Horcrux in the nick of time – but then how do they get out of the room, which is still full of doubled treasures? No idea; we just see them outside. Presumably the spell somehow reversed itself – but you have to show these things in an action movie.
The Battle of Hogwarts is notably incoherent. “Hogwarts has changed,” we’re grimly informed. Severus Snape (Alan Rickman) is now Headmaster; staff and students look cowed and terrorised. Yet, again, what follows is bathetic. Snape is defeated in about two minutes, one quick wand-fight in which Harry (as usual) isn’t even involved. Then the battle begins in earnest – and confusion reigns. Voldemort stands on a hill with an army of black-caped villains. They throw bombs at the school, which explode like fireworks and don’t seem to do any damage at all. Then an army of ruffians turns up, attacking with no obvious strategy. Then we cut to Ron and Hermione destroying something – another Horcrux, I think – inside the building, as all the various teachers we’ve seen over the years (Jim Broadbent, Emma Thompson) get about five seconds of screen-time. Then the battle’s over, and Hogwarts is strewn with corpses. Say what you like about Lord of the Rings, at least you could tell who was doing what and why during the battle scenes.
Maybe it’s just me. Maybe those who’ve read the books – who, let’s face it, are almost the entire audience at this stage – know exactly what’s going on. Maybe I just wasn’t paying attention – but I’ve seen enough action flicks to know lucid staging from this kind of muddle. (Another example: Voldemort kills Snape then just … goes away, allowing Snape and Harry a poignant moment together.) Again and again, Deathly Hallows comes off half-baked and wishy-washy, very much including the question that tormented Potter fans before the book came out, namely ‘Does Harry die?’. To which the answer is Yes … and No.
Like the film – like the franchise as a whole – our hero flatters to deceive. “Even among goblins you’re famous, Harry Potter,” says a goblin, but it’s hard to shake the sense that he’s famous for being famous, like Paris Hilton. What exactly has he done, in 20 hours of screen time? Everyone says how “brave” he’s been but it seems like his friends do most of the dirty work, HP himself being more of a symbol. Casting also plays a part here. Harry should be hyper-sensitive, almost neurotic; he’s plagued by nightmares and forever feeling things (not so much doing things). Daniel Radcliffe, however, is a stolid, sensible actor, a matey, down-to-earth, reassuring presence. He’s all wrong for this haunted character.
None of this matters, of course. The Potter phenomenon defies explanation, and this eighth part will join its seven forebears among the top-grossing films of all time. What matters is that, after 10 years, we Potter-challenged critics can finally move on with our lives. Harry Potter’s been like a semi-familiar neighbour you run into at the supermarket every few months, each time occasioning a mild panic as you try to be polite and try to remember his wife’s name – but now the neighbour’s moved away, or has he? ‘19 years later’ says the unexpected coda, presenting Harry, Ron and Hermione with kids of their own, yet they look much the same (not for Harry Potter the indignities of old-age makeup!), full of energy and ready – can it be? – for new adventures. Brace yourselves, Muggles.
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