BOTTOM LINE: Proving to be, on balance, a satisfying conclusion to the Harry Potter franchise, the film is beautiful to look at, epic in scope, and well acted; however the pacing is a little sluggish in parts and Ralph Fiennes’ villain is ultimately under-utilised.

THE GOOD: The Harry Potter franchise has become the most successful in history, and despite its legion of fans versus naysayers, the franchise deserves its place as an entertainment juggernaut. Now with this final instalment, the series comes full circle, and much like Deathly Hallows Part 1, this film is a definite step up in terms of solid storytelling and dramatic depth, elements which have been absent in previous entries in the series. This film is primarily concerned with the epic confrontation between Harry Potter (Radcliffe) and evil nemesis Lord Voldemort (a sublime Ralph Fiennes). In many ways, the film does a decent job in bringing their story arc to conclusion, but surprisingly, it is through the resolution of second-tier characters that this movie delivers rather than the direct head-on confrontation between Harry and Voldemort. The stand out storyline and performance belongs to the revelation and resolution of Snape’s character (Alan Rickman), which proves to be quite touching and dramatically powerful. The three leads in Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint have all come of age through this series, and deliver their best performances to date. Despite the film being grim in tone, the three actors manage to squeeze in some humour which is well needed. Director David Yates has crafted beautiful images to see out this finale, with the visual effects shots in particular being nothing short of amazing. This final film in the Harry Potter franchise is a worthy conclusion to a very successful series of films.

THE BAD: Being the penultimate episode in the series, and the big finale featuring Voldemort’s demise, it would have been good to see more from the villain in question. Ralph Fiennes does a spectacular job as Voldemort, but the script does not allow him to do more than just scream every now and then when Harry destroys a part of his soul, or kill his subordinates when they talk out of turn. Voldemort has only one very strong scene in the film when he kills off Snape; it is done with sinister execution, but sadly, this is all we get from the character outside of the previously described situations. In the end, Harry is able to knock him off in a final ‘magic wand’ contest that finishes almost as soon as it begins. This is a criticism of the series in general in that many of the movies do not go far enough dramatically, which may work fine for kids, but for films that may wish to work for adults simultaneously, there just is not enough here. The film does take a little while to get going, with the first twenty minutes in particular being somewhat slow in pace. One final note is the film’s epilogue which takes place nineteen years later, yet the three main leads still look the same age; it did not work for this reason, despite the fact that from a story point of view, it was a nice way to finish the series on a positive light.