It ends with a bang (and tears) | Bangkok Post: Arts & Culture

MOVIEREVIEW

It ends with razzle-dazzle, Horcruxes crushed, Harry resurrected (like Jesus Christ) and Snape's tears, the saddest tears of them all. To cut to the crux: this is one of the best Harry Potter movies, perhaps the best, given the sense of closure and catharsis that arrives after the 10-year span of Hollywood's most successful film franchise.

After all the sizzling wand duels and spell-casting, the series that thrives on fantasy elements and digital magic has proven to be capable of real emotion and even poignancy. It's the poignancy that comes with the end of adolescence; the kind that stays into adulthood.

Looking back, it seems like a strategic inevitability that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 that came out last year was a bit of a drag: it was a slow-burning overture when we'd expected it to be a drumbeat of war. With the carpet already rolled, Part 2 dances its grim dance on it, and Hogwarts at one point resembles a cemetery (at other points, a mental asylum with shrieking kids). The boy is a tortured soul, and Harry's growing pains are the real subject of the books and the movies. The way this finale hovers between a serious children's film and a teenage action-thriller makes it a pop-artefact that carries an honest power to inspire, and to make a lot of money worldwide, too.