Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2: a surprising degree of high drama

Lets show a little respect. Notwithstanding JK Rowling’s recently announced adventures in cyberspace, the release of this diverting wizard-vs-wizard smackdown signals the end of a remarkable cultural phenomenon. No previous series of novels has sold so many copies. No film franchise has made quite so much money. The unconvinced may as well argue against the wind.

Still, Potter agnostics will have been sharpening their poking sticks after the pallid holding pattern that was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1. Never before has so little happened at such great length. Was it really necessary to split the final book into two parts? Let's show a little less respect.

The modest success of Part 2 does offer arguments for separating the feisty denouement from the ponderous preamble. Rather than releasing that earlier film, the producers should, however, have reduced it to a photocopied series of bullet points – Horcruxes found; camping trip completed; principals now approaching middle age – to be handed out before showings of the final episode. They wouldn't mind missing out on a billion dollars here or there. Would they?

Happy to relate, the current film is the shortest of the entire series and the best since the justly lauded Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Clocking in at 10 minutes over two hours (lengthy for root canal surgery, mercifully brief for a Potter film), the picture offers action, suspense and a fag-ash macabre fug from gloomy beginning to mildly touching epilogue.

Many of the customary reservations remain in place. Completely impossible to follow if you come with no prior knowledge, the film has no worth as a stand-alone project. The acting from the now not-so-juvenile leads remains uneven. The cast of supporting players is too overcrowded. (Was that Emma Thompson’s elbow I saw flitting past?) But the film can’t be faulted for its determination to thrust energetically towards that final great revelation.

What sort of summary is possible? As those who care will be aware, three students of Hogwarts have, for the last decade, been carrying on a guerrilla campaign against the evil, nose-free Voldemort and his morose minions. Eventually, after a thousand RSC veterans had assured their pensions, the battle resolved into a series of interlocked quests. The team must hunt down several so-called Horcruxes (magical objects or entities) that hold the key to the dark one’s power. Before their mission is completed, Voldemort secures the all-powerful Elder Wand and attacks the heroes’ alma mater.

As the picture begins, the school, shrouded in Transylvanian darkness, is being threatened by a body of floating, sombrely cloaked death eaters. Potter and his mob launch the final assault.

Clearing away some of the narrative muddle allows the uncharacteristically limited dramatic interludes a degree of space to breathe and flourish. One particularly delicious moment finds Helena Bonham Carter essaying a near-perfect impression of Emma Watson’s balsa-wood delivery. Daniel Radcliffe, always best when frail and fretful, gets across Potter’s terror at the responsibilities he is forced to shoulder. Grint, though offered little to do, continues to develop his undoubted skills as an attractive character actor.

The final film is, however, all about conflict and spectacle. It delivers. David “Safe-Pair-of-Hands” Yates has, over his four episodes as director, perfected a class of English gothic that show- pieces the talents of the technical personnel and lends the pictures an atmosphere all their own.

Heck, we agnostics might actually end up missing these things. No, that’s going too far.