Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows Part 2 Blu-ray Review

• 28th Nov 2011

And so it has come to this. The eighth and final film in the Harry Potter franchise. It’s been a decade since it all started and it’s truly fitting that they saved one of the best for last. Of course it has the advantage of being all pretty much about the pay off – and pay it off it does.

The second part of the Deathly hallows sees Harry and co. continuing on their search for the remaining horcruxes in their bid to take out Voldemort. This final adventure will see them sneaking about giant underground bank vaults, facing off against fearsome enemies in the forest, but crucially standing with the supportive crowd at Hogwarts itself. It’s a true marathon of set pieces from start to finish – and pretty much all involved have done themselves proud. It’s a great looking film, the score is majestic and the performers have their best efforts yet realised on screen. The young cast have really grown over the franchise and Radcliffe in particular shines.

Of course the series may be focussed on the kids, but it’s also known for the well established supporting adult cast it has amassed. The upside is the wide variety of talent involved (and there is no shortage of them here – Ralph Fiennes; Gary Oldman; Helena Bonham Carter; Jim Broadbent; David Thewlis; Emma Thompson; Maggie Smith; Alan Rickman; Julie Walters; Robbie Coltrane; Jason Isaacs and so on…). If anything; it’s a shame more focus was not put on these cast members as their characters are quite fascinating. The one who has always managed to stand out effortlessly is Alan Rickman as Snape. Snape’s presence and ambiguity as a character is brought full circle in some of the films key scenes (which are also some of the biggest emotional highlights of the film).

It’s also worth pointing out Matthew Lewis who portrays Neville Longbottom, who pretty much becomes the film’s unsung hero in several scenes. Truly you’d wish to learn that in the future he ended up becoming the new Headmaster of Hogwarts (which sadly in the books he doesn’t?).

I won’t bang on too much more – except to say that whilst I started off as a non-fan of this series, this one really works. Regardless of what film is your favourite, this one really pays it all off.

There are a few niggles – usually relating to characters who are not really covered that much or we don’t get to find out about (both good and bad). But considering the amount of material they had to cover, it’s just about forgivable.

The Blu-ray 2-disc version comes more loaded than any previous Harry potter release. There are some long and in-depth interviews and features about the franchise as a whole which you may be surprised to see, including an hour long interview between J K Rowling and Daniel Radcliffe about the progression of the series.

The film also comes with the Maximum Movie Mode, which sees many of the cast and crew pop up to talk about various aspects of the film as it plays. They pause the film quite often, and sometimes replay footage, as they show you behind the scenes shots which inform you more about the film-making aspect of the series. This extends the running time of the film to almost 3 hours, but it’s worth it for fans who want that bit of extra behind the scenes knowledge.

It goes without saying you need to see the other films before you even think about buying this one. But it would also be rather odd to think than anyone who already owns the previous films wouldn’t buy this. It should come as a comfort to them then that this is a contender for the best!

Steven Hurst