Movie review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

Through 10 years, seven best-selling novels, eight movies and a gazillion-dollar cottage industry in ancillary goods, the Harry Potter franchise has charted an increasingly convoluted and darkening, but steady, course toward the earnest, owl-eyed Harry's final showdown with the evil, reptilian Lord Voldemort.

After last fall's rather too deliberate table setting in “Deathly Hallows: Part 1,” the final chapters drawn from Rowling's sprawling, 759-page book find in “Part 2” a firmer narrative footing and momentum to an appropriately thrilling, thunderclap climax (with a sweetly nostalgic, turning-of-seasons epilogue tacked on for good measure).

Synopsis is hardly needed here because, first, the story's density would require all manner of torturous verbal acrobatics, and, second, because anyone queuing up to see this picture has most likely read the novels and/or seen all seven previous film adaptations and knows fully what to expect. Newbies would be wise to start at the beginning, and Muggles might be advised to skip the whole thing entirely.

But for the initiated, who take the full meaning of Voldemort (a chilling, snake-faced Ralph Fiennes), his smoky Death Eaters and their campaign to conquer the magical world and wipe out Muggle-kind, all the keys are in place by the swift opening of this film.

Heroic Hogwarts wizards Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe), Hermione Granger (Emma Watson) and Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) are still on the hunt to find and destroy several Horcruxes, artifacts that hold pieces of Voldemort's soul and make him essentially immortal.