Harry Potter: The End

The first time I had ever heard of Harry Potter was while serving an LDS mission in a small European country, Slovenia.  I remember walking through a Mercator grocery store in Slovenia's capitol Ljubljana and seeing a poster for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, the book.  It looked to me like a kid's book, and I didn't think much of it.  When I came home, I am not sure what made me take interest in Harry Potter exactly, but it was 2001, and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was being released in theaters a week before Christmas.  I went to see the opening midnight showing and decided I liked it.  That was almost ten years ago, and after reading the books, seeing all of the films as close to opening night as possible, and even dressing up as Harry Potter for Halloween a couple of times, I consider myself a pretty loyal fan.

Anxiously, I have waited for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 to be released, and that time finally came.  The problem with a release as big as this is that hype can often spoil an otherwise great film. This happened actually when I read the book for the first time.  Thankfully, my expectations did not overshadow Deathly Hallows: Part 2 the movie.  I particularly enjoyed the overall dark tone of this film.  In Part 1, wisely, it still had some lightness to it.  It was dealt with so that Part 2 could get down to business.  I am really excited to see both films together preferably in an undivided single epic.  It will be nice to see how the contrasting tone of the individual movies compliment one another when viewed together.  Now, I may be contested in this following thought, but my brother and I have had several  conversations in the past contesting if there exists a movie that is better than the book on which it is based.  I have not read the book, but he claims that The Princess Bride comes close and falls short.  Until now, I could not come up with even a possible contestant.  In the case of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, not one film, but the two accomplish what I believed impossible.  It is the end of a franchise.  It is an excellent end.