Ultimate

   Yesterday we went to see the ultimate Harry Potter film at the Cineworld in Stevenage. By ultimate I mean the dictionary definition  Being or happening at the end of a process; final rather than the surfer dude version of “Dude that was the ultimate!” We have seen all but the penultimate in the series at a cinema so it seemed fitting that we see the last one there as well. The only reason we didn’t see the Deathly Hallows part 1 was I found that part of the book dragged and I didn’t want to pay cinema prices for it. But this was well worth it. It may be the ONLY Harry Potter film I have had nothing to complain about. Yes they left some things out, but it really didn’t alter the plot or leave big gaps that only a reader of the book would know. Anything that was left out was interesting but non essential. Unlike some of the other films.

Whenever I think about Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, I get all steamy and start muttering things to myself about “How could he possibly *know* that the stag patronus was his dad? He hasn’t had the conversation with Professor Lupin about Prongs, Padfoot, Moony and Wormtail!” Whenever I start ranting like this Spiderman just walks away leaving me on the street corner to mumble to myself like some crazy woman.

But I felt it was a satisfactory end to a series I have enjoyed—not loved, not been obsessed by—but thoroughly enjoyed. It was of course what we call a “popcorn film” where there is all this POW! BANG! CRASH! And you are shoveling popcorn into your mouth with both hands just trying to keep up, but we expected it to be. This was,after all,  the final battle between Harry and Voldemort. I liked how as Voldemort got weaker his eczema flared up. Very realistic.  

It was certainly a good end but these would have been my wishes to improve it:

While I was pleased to see they didn’t cut Neville’s role, I would have liked the line about Neville being professor of herbology at Hogwarts and still friends with gang after all these years to have stayed in that epilogue 19 years later. It was just a nice piece of detail about my favourite character, that’s all.

I would have also liked the scenes with young Lilly and Snape to have had more about her sister Petunia. All you see is her calling Lilly a freak. But in the book it was so much more. Petunia actually wrote to Hogwarts to be accepted as a pupil because she longed so much for the special gifts that Lilly possessed. It is a moment in the book where you see her as completely human and understand all the conflicting feelings of why she hated Harry, but also why she insisted he stay when Uncle Vernon tried to kick him out. The film just makes her look like the cardboard baddie that we thought she was. We had no idea the depth of Petunia until the end.

So Dude maybe it was the ultimate, ultimate film after all.