Movie Review: HARRY POTTER & THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 2 (2011)

directed by David Yates; written by Steve Kloves (based on the novel by J.K Rowling)
starring Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Alan Rickman & Ralph Fiennes

After a reprise of Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows Part 1's closing scene, with Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) retrieving the fabled Elder Wand from the entombed corpse of Albus Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) and firing a triumphant bolt of energy into the heavens, Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows Part 2 continues without interruption—so I recommend you get reacquainted with the previous film, or risk spending the first section of Hallows 2 trying to remember how and why Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) captured a grumpy goblin, and that Hermione (Emma Watson) can transform into the likeness of wicked witch Bellatrix Lestrange (Helena Bonham Carter).

Of course, the Harry Potter movies tend to assume the majority of the audience have read the books till they're dog-eared, which is probably true, but not in my case. For me, the Potter saga has been an exclusively cinematic experience, but I finish many installments with questions and confusions buzzing around my brain. Whatever happened to that nice Chinese girl Harry kissed once? When did Ginny Weasley and Harry get together? Whatever happened to Moaning Myrtle, whose role as "resident ghost" is supplanted here by the Grey Lady (Kelly Macdonald)?

"You've kept him alive so that he can die at the proper moment."

After eight movies covering seven increasingly hefty books, I think it's safe to say the saga's narrative could have been improved by writing the scripts with the benefit of having all Joanne Rowling's completed books to draw from. Instead, the movies were being made before J.K had finished the fifth tome, and despite the guidance she kindly gave laudable screenwriter Steve Kloves (highlight this character more because he'll be important later, wink-wink), a feeling lingers that the movies were incapable of properly developing or emphasizing key ideas, characters, and storylines that became important in the latter films. A case in point: I have no doubt that Warner Bros would have insisted a better actress play Ginny Wesley, and Kloves would have developed that character more, had everyone known she'd become the hero's love-interest.

Hallows 2 is just an extended climax of its immediate predecessor; a movie that brings a dazzling sense of pace and energy to the often sluggish franchise, in particular contrast to quiet and character-focused Hallows 1. It's not long before we're watching an exciting Potterverse bank heist at Gringotts (where a terrific dragon's ued as the getaway car), and then we're back inside the oppressed Hogwarts—now run by traitorous, dictatorial headmaster Snape (Alan Rickman)—before the students regain power and batten down the hatches in preparation for Voldemort's arrival with his army of Death Eaters. It's an epic clash evoking The Lord Of The Rings' fabulous Siege of Gondor, only involving characters you have deeper attachment to.

In many ways Hallows 2 is one of the least nuanced and plotted installments, but after seven films nudging the mytharc along (often within the confines of self-contained mysteries), it feels only right the boy-wizard's climax is an epic action movie involving animated stone knights, club-wielding trolls, giant spiders, ethereal Dementors, and thousands of wizards spitting spells with their wands. Of particular merit were the World War II feel to battle sequences—with Hogwarts analogous to liberal Britain and Voldemort's cronies representing fascist Nazi Germany. This war movie vibe echoed through the design of the half-demolished school, resembling areas of post-Blitz London with '40s-style wooden stretchers to ferry the injured away.

"You were right, never better. I feel like I can spit fire."

The lead triumvirate of Radcliffe, Watson and Grint have grown into their characters and play them well, with Radcliffe delivering his best performance yet with clenched determination. It's just a shame Watson and Grint don't have much to do beyond chase a big snake around before sharing a kiss (a moment that flops because, honestly, who's ever believed Hermione was attracted to twerpy Ron?) It's particularly sad to realize that Hermione has faded from the plucky young know-all of yesteryear into someone who can't even summon the courage to destroy a horcrux by herself, fated to live out her days as a wife and mother? Considering Rowling's claim that Hermione's essentially herself as a young girl, it's especially disappointing treatment by the author. Rowling even gave an imperative and heroic moment to a relative background character like Neville Longbottom? Astonishingly poor judgement, at least from the perspective of what the movies have given us. (For all I know Neville was a boy of considerable depth and latent valor in the books—anyone care to shed some light?)

Such is the busyness of Hallows 2, most of the adults are just wheeled on to prove they're still on the payroll (hello Mark Williams and Julie Walters, nice to see you again Emma Thompson and David Thewlis), with the exception of the delightfully eerie Alan Rickman—who almost steals the show thanks to a sublime final moment with Radcliffe, leading to a revelatory flashback for Snape that, despite slightly undermining a sacrifice, was brilliantly handled and highly charged. Fiennes also receives a greater amount of screen time than ever before, cementing Lord Voldemort as one of fiction's greatest villains. Seeing the Dark Lord slowly emasculated by every horcrux's destruction, his power chiefly derived from a serpent (how Jungian!), made for compelling drama.

"It seems despite your exhaustive defensive strategies, you still have a bit of a security problem, Headmaster."

To its credit, the mechanics of how Harry triumphs over his arch-nemesis has good internal logic and a few surprises that feel plausible, blessed with some very memorable imagery (a dueling Harry and Voldemort locked in a Star Wars-esque stalemate with fizzing wands, an embryonic Voldemort curled into a fetal position), and the only real letdown is the inclusion of the novel's contentious coda involving a limp flash-forward. It may have felt daft on the page, but at least your imagination could do a better makeup job.

Overall, this conclusion of the long-running, astonishingly popular Harry Potter saga is unlikely to disappoint its fans, and even people left scratching their head over various matters will have been too entertained to really care. At times Hallows 2 delivers edge-of-your seat action, not to mention some emotional peaks that should elicit some lump-in-your-throat moments. For all its faults, and problems with the series as a whole (which danced with greatness, but never seized it), the majesty and ambition of this franchise is beyond reproach. A remarkable contemporary mythology; these spellbinding films, like the best-selling books, will be entertaining us for many years to come.

Warner Bros. Pictures / 130 minutes

Movie Bites: 'The Hole', 'The Last Airbender' & 'The Other Guys'

THE HOLE. Joe Dante (Gremlins) makes his overdue return to directing with children's fantasy-thriller The Hole; essentially Goosebumps-meets-The Gate. In a typically Spielbergian suburb of America, teenager Dane (Chris Massoglia) and his younger brother Lucas (Nathan Gamble) move into a new house with their single mother (Teri Polo), later discovering a padlocked trapdoor in the basement that covers a bottomless abyss. They investigate the uncanny hole with the help of cute next-door-neighbour Julie (Haley Bennett), only to later realize that they've awoken malevolent spirits from within.

There's a pleasing sense of '80s nostalgia about The Hole, particularly in its first act, which features the tropes of many kid-friendly horrors of that decade: a family moving into a new neighbourhood, a shy teen ignoring his mom because he's listening to loud music, there's even a sinister jester puppet that recalls both the unnerving clown from Poltergeist and Dante's own Gremlins once it springs to maniacal life. The trouble with The Hole is that the mystery and scares become less potent the longer the movie trundles on, despite a fun detour when the trio find the house's previous occupant "Creepy Carl" (Bruce Dern), perhaps proving The Hole would have made a better Outer Limits episode than a full-blooded movie.

Still, credit Dante for delivering a scary movie for kids with some genuinely creepy moments (the grinning jester's a recurring nightmare-in-waiting), camera tricks that were once avant-garde for adult horrors (reverse-filmed ghosts, to create an unnerving jittery gait), and good use of Friedrich Nietzsche's quote "if you stare into the abyss long enough, the abyss stares back at you" to explain the eponymous hole's power.

directed by Joe Dante / written by Mark L. Smith / starring Teri Polo, Chris Massoglia, Haley Bennett, Nathan Gamble & Bruce Dern / 98 mins.

* * *

THE LAST AIRBENDER. All hope that M. Night Shyamalan could reverse his filmmaking nosedive by tackling someone else's material are dashed by the dreary non-event of The Last Airbender. Maybe MNS should try directing someone else's script entirely, although there are a worrying number of awkward, stilted scenes that belie Shymalan's usual competence behind the camera. Maybe the guy's starting to lose whatever glimmers of latent talent remained on The Happening? Last Airbender's chilly steampunk production design, nifty special effects, and intelligible fights are the only things worthy of some praise, and thus responsible for my one-star rating.

In a mythical realm there are four kingdoms whose populations can wield, or "bend", the five elements (earth, air, fire, water) to their will. The Air Nation are extinct at the hands of the bellicose Fire Nation, who declared war on all their neighbours, and our story begins with Water Nation friends Katara (Nicola Peltz) and Sokka (Jackson Rathbone) uncovering an airbender called Aang (Noah Ringer) in a globe of ice -- who's also the long-lost Avatar, capable of controlling all four elements and commune with the ethereal Spirit world. Elsewhere, exiled Fire Nation prince Zuko (Dev Patel) is determined to capture the Avatar to regain the acceptance of his warmongering father, Fire Lord Ozai (Cliff Curtis).

There's nothing about Airbender's premise that shouldn't work as a live-action movie. I hear the Nickelodeon cartoon this movie's adapted from is a revered animation with the potential to have spawned a successful franchise in the Harry Potter/Star Wars mould, which makes Shyamalan's limp movie a bitter pill to swallow. The screenplay unwisely tries to compress an entire season's worth of plot into 99-minutes and, frankly, this results in puzzling twists and turns. I'm still not sure if Zuko was a hero or villain, or exactly why the Fire Nation refuse to live in harmony with the other kingdoms. All the actors are vacuous husks, bringing no personality to proceedings, so it's impossible to care about the quest they're on, or invest in their motivations -- if they even have any. While a stupid love-story materializes out of nowhere for gormless Sokka and a beautiful teenage princess, any potential of a romantic undercurrent to Katara and Aang fails to ignite.

The Last Airbender is a movie with a rich universe to explore, but provides no emotional tether for its audience. It's rather like watching a hazy dream unfold, only half as fun in the moment and forgotten twice as fast. But it was a surprise box-office success, despite being savaged by critics, so maybe a lower-budget sequel will happen. If so, let's hope Shyamalan finds his Irvin Kershner and hands over the reigns.

written & directed by M. Night Shyamalan / starring Noah Ringer, Nicola Peltz, Jackson Rathbone, Dev Patel, Shaun Toub, Aasif Mandvi & Cliff Curtis / 103 mins.

* * *

THE OTHER GUYS. Mismatched "buddy" cop comedy from Adam McKay (Anchorman), where pen-pushing detective Allen Gamble (Will Ferrell) and his dimwitted partner Terry Hoitz (Mark Wahlberg) stumble upon a case where billionaire David Ershon (Steve Coogan) is trying to cover his business's financial losses to client Lendl Global. Gamble and Hoitz are the eponymous "other guys" of the precinct, dismissed by their colleagues (particularly an egocentric duo played by Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne Johnson), who get a chance to prove everyone wrong by solving the city's biggest ever crime.

My problem with this comedy is, at heart, very simple: it isn't very funny. The case being investigated is a white-collar bore that's impossible to feel any connection with, wasting Coogan in the process (no change there), while the simply humour of partnering nerdy Ferrell with idiot Wahlberg rarely amuses. The only element that works is a running gag that Ferrell's character can't see that his sexy wife Sheila (Eva Mendes) is every man's dreamgirl, instead convinced she's a plane jane, which has very little to do with the actual story being told. There are moments when you get the impression this is intended to be an American answer to Hot Fuzz (a climactic car chase swaps Fuzz's miniature village for a golf club's driving range), with McKay also indulging himself with memorable but pointless sequences (like a one-shot tableaux in a pub, where the camera floats around frozen 3D snapshots of Gamble and Hoitz partying.) Adding to the sense of a movie utterly failing in its intentions, the end credits involve animations that explain various financial concepts (using graphs, pie-charts, and statistics), despite the fact The Other Guys never once felt like a clever treatise on shameful business practices.

directed by Adam McKay / written by Chris Hency & Adam McKay / starring Will Ferrell, Mark Wahlberg, Eva Mendes, Samuel L. Jackson, Dwayne Johnson, Steve Coogan & Michael Keaton / 107 mins.

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010)

David Slade, the director who filmed a castration for the unflinching Hard Candy, places his own testicles in the vice of studio commercialism here, forever staining his filmography by involving himself with The Twilight Saga. The good news is this overblown franchise does improve with each release, so maybe the fifth and final movie won't leave me curled up in a gibbering ball with my brain turned to slush.

Continuing six months after the events of New Moon, melancholic Bella (Kristen Stewart) has taken to lolling around in sunny fields with twinkly vampire beau Edward (Robert Pattinson), desperate for him to turn her into one of the undead, if only so she can lose her virginity to him without the fear of physical injury. He likes it rough, does the sullen Cullen. It's always the quiet ones.

I have to lie here 16-hours a day for perfect "bedhead"

But while Edward's won the heart of misery guts Bella, he's unsure condemning her to life as a vampire is the right thing to do -- possibly because the poor girl's pasty enough as it is, or maybe because an eternity of mutual moping is a big turn-off. Added to this, Bella is still conflicted about her feelings for strapping wolfboy Jacob (Taylor Lautner), whom she's been avoiding for months, before feeling compelled to reacquaint herself with his cobbled abs. Knowing werewolves exude copious body heat, Jacob's stomach must feel like hot stones in a pillow case, whereas Edward's tummy must be like a slab of cold gammon.

The plot, which would struggle to fill 20-minutes without the film's heavy use of flashbacks and love triangle posturing, concerns tongue-twisting vampire villain Victoria (Christina Hendricks Bryce Dallas Howard) amassing an army of "newborn" vamps to defeat the Cullens, with the help of a Forks native called Riley (Xavier Samuel) she's turned into her bloodsucking toyboy. As newborn vamps are extremely strong and dangerous, the Cullens decide to form an alliance with the local wolf pack, defending their town and Bella from redhead Victoria and her adolescent mercenaries from Seattle. (Incidentally, I've never understood why peaceful, vegetarian vampires can't get along with peaceful, spiritual werewolves. Surely they're ideal neighbours? "E-bon-y and i-vo-ry, live together in perfect har-mon-y...")

Eclipse isn't a skid mark on the towel of cinema like its predecessors, but it's still resolutely average and languorous. What helps is that Slade's a gifted director capable of delivering some half-decent action sequences (albeit with a whiff of Narnia thanks to those silly wolves), and there are a few character moments that actually work. Notably, a scene where Edward's forced to allow love rival Jacob to sleep alongside Bella in their mountainside tent, knowing Jacob's acute body heat will prevent his girlfriend dying of hypothermia. A scene that plays out very nicely because Lautner and Pattinson both get a chance to act, and the antagonism between their characters develops a speck of depth as they reach a mutual understanding. It's the first time they've been treated as anything other than paranormal alpha males using Bella for a game of sexual tug o' war.

The auditionees for Homoerotic Baywatch

I find that the Twilight movies are, outside of themselves, an oddly interesting talking point. Bella's a role model for schoolgirls, yet she's a character wholly defined by her need for a relationship with boys -- so do older girls find her lack of independence and narrow interests a turn-off? As a man, Bella evokes loathing from me, because she's a girl leading two men on, and that naturally makes me dislike her. And yet I realize that if the genders were reversed, and Twilight was about a despondent teenage boy having to decide between a sexy vampiress and she-wolf, that wouldn't seem half as bad. It's an example of the "slut versus stud" argument, which is undoubtedly very unfair. So maybe men should accept this saga is speaking to a fantasy they can't connect with. But that still doesn't excuse the atrocious underwriting of Bella, who has no hobbies outside of... well, dreary voice-overs and riding pillion on the back of motorbikes.

Overall, Eclipse is the best of a bad bunch, thanks to watchable action beats, more realism to its asinine love-triangle, better acting from the lead triptych, slicker special-effects, some entertaining origin flashbacks, and its ability to inspire debate between Twilight supporters and detractors. The plot is merely a flimsy cobweb holding a collection of moments together, and the core of these movies is insipid piffle aimed at 12-year-old girls, but it's clearly working its magic on the impressionable demographic it's aimed at.

DIRECTOR: David Slade
WRITER: Melissa Rosenberg (based on the book by Stephenie Meyer)
CAST: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Bryce Dallas Howard, Billy Burke, Peter Facinelli, Dakota Fanning, Ashley Greene, Elizabeth Reaser, Jackson Rathbone, Kellan Lutz, Nikki Reed, Sarah Chalke, Anna Kendrick & Michael Welch
RUNNING TIME: 124 mins. BUDGET: $68 million