Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 22/07/11

Before I start, I'd just like to thank J.K. Rowling for bringing Rupert Grint into my life.

Splitting the final book in to two films has been the best decision of the past 10 years for the franchise. It allowed for more focused detail across both films that I feel may have been missed had it all been squeezed into one. Having said this I was left lacking a bit with some moments involving important characters. In the book, Fred dying was the biggest upset for me and it was only touched on. This is me being extremely selfish and pernickety but I still would have liked a little more sentiment there.

I feel like this is the first time in the history of the films that it almost lived up to the book. I found myself being taken back to reading The Deathly Hallows and the imagery played a big part in this. In large part, the films haven't matched up to the version my imagination created when reading the books. The Deathly Hallows Part 1 and 2 however have almost hit the nail on the head in this department, in particular, the scene in which Harry accepts his fate and is to meet Lord Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest. When Harry finds the resurrection stone which brings back his mother and father, Remus Lupin and Professor Snape I found that it was an almost perfect image of the one in my imagination. From a purely self indulgent perspective, this felt like a fitting and sentimental ending to the ten years.

When you look back over the films and think of the calibre of actors that have bought to life the characters from page to screen, it makes you feel quite privileged to be part of the generation that got to experience it all first hand. From Richard Harris and Michael Gambon, to Kenneth Branagh, Maggie Smith, Jim Broadbent, Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson, Gary Oldman, Julie Walters, Ralph Fiennes, Helena Bonham Carter, Timothy Spall, Imelda Staunton, Bill Nighy, Fiona Shaw, Richard Griffiths.... and that's just scratching the surface!

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 is by far and wide the best film of the Harry Potter series and an almost perfect send off. I'm happy that that David Yates chose to trust the fact that fans know the story and didn't regurgitate unneccessary information. The satisfying element for me is that this was in keeping with the novel and this allowed for an ending that was worthy of years of hard work. I whipped out the Kleenex and the Sky Superscreen Balcony at the O2 guided me towards the culmination of a childhood.