July 7, 2011. Copyright 2011, Graphic News. All rights reserved

Harry Potter casts a final spell
By Joanna Griffin

LONDON, July 7, Graphic News:  Almost a decade after Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone first hooked millions of fans who had never read the books about the boy wizard, the last Potter film doesn't just conclude the epic struggle at the heart of the story but brings to an end the world's most successful film franchise. With so many expectations heaped upon it, can Deathly Hallows Part 2 possibly deliver enough magic?

A lot has happened during those 10 years -- Harry Potter and his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger have grown up, as have actors Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson. Radcliffe has spoken of his "devastation" that the series is ending while Grint has noted his discomfort at enjoying a passionate clinch with Watson in the last movie after growing up together at Hogwarts. Similarly, for many fans who watched the first instalment as young teens in 2001, the last one represents in some ways an end to their childhood.

It is this gradual darkening of experience and loss of innocence that reaches its climax in Deathly Hallows Part 2, when Harry faces his final battle with the Dark Lord, Voldemort. After the sense of liberation that accompanied the start of the trio's hunt for Voldemort's remaining Horcruxes -- the magical items responsible for his immortality -- away from Hogwarts in Deathly Hallows Part 1, Part 2 returns to the claustrophobia of the school as the young wizards search for the final three Horcruxes, which must be destroyed. They discover that one of them is the cup of Helga Hufflepuff, a founder of Hogwarts, but the locations of the other two are unknown.
 
This is just one of the mysteries to be solved in a film that must tie up numerous loose ends as it reveals the fate that awaits the wizard and "muggle" worlds for the rest of eternity. With the Elder Wand now in his possession, Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) is better equipped than ever to fight Harry, and their combat takes on an even greater urgency. While Part 1 was described as a "road trip", Part 2 is more action movie with almost non-stop fighting scenes, particularly in the second half. Director David Yates has described it as "big opera with huge battles".

Fans of JK Rowling's Harry Potter books are famously reluctant to give away any secrets, but filmgoers can expect the deaths of several key characters, although Harry, Ron and Hermione survive. For those three at least the future looks promising, but other questions are unlikely to go away. For example: is the series, as some critics suggest, really a Christian allegory with Harry Potter in the role of messiah? And why has a great-looking series that has delighted millions of fans of all ages failed to collect any major awards?

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 opens worldwide from July 15.
/ENDS