"The wand chooses the wizard, Mr. Potter. That much has always been clear to those of us who have studied wand lore."
So says Dingus Jinglegargle in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2", the 91st installment of the Harry Potter series. Unfortunately this quote is one of the few times in the film that wand lore is mentioned or discussed. If there's one problem I had with HPatDH:P2 it's the stunning lack of wand lore discussion. There are so many Harry Potter movies, would it be so hard to devote one movie to wand lore? How about it, Hollywood?
The drama in action movies, is the tension between hoping the protagonist succeeds and fearing that he'll fail. If you know the protagonist will succeed, there is no tension. You know how I knew Harry Potter was going to be OK? Magic. It doesn't matter what happens to him, everything can be solved with magic. It's what makes magic so magical. Watch what happens to classic movies when you insert this one element.
Jaws
Fisherman: Uh oh, there's a giant shark in these waters.
Robert Shaw: Don't worry I'll banish it with a spell.
The End.
The Bicycle Thief
Antonio Ricci: Someone stole my bicycle and without it, I'll lose my job.
[Ricci conjures another.]
The End.
Back to the Future
Marty: I've disrupted the space-time continuum and now I'm in danger of never being born, Doc!
Doc Brown: This is indeed serious. Fortunately, I have a incantation which will make your mother and father fall in love and set everything right again!
Marty: That's great, Doc!
The End.
To its credit, the film counters this uphill battle in two ways. First, they put limitations on the magic. But as far as I can tell, the limitations are completely arbitrary and totally unpredictable. In one scene magic critically injures a man, but isn't used to heal him. Why one and not the other? I suspect it's that the writer wanted a powerful "deathbed" scene. People die all throughout the film but late in the film, someone dies but then magically comes back to life. Why one and not the others? In another scene, a wizard has to run across a bridge before it collapses. Is there no spell for super speed or levitation or flying or holding bridges together? If I was on the board of wizard research, that would be a top priority.
The second way the movie counters the "magic problem" is to counter the good guys' magic with villains who also have magical abilities - that way they cancel each other out. But that's just as confusing and nonsensical. One guy's blue lightning throws someone back but someone else's blue lightning disintegrates someone, then blue lightning and orange lightning have a fight and orange gets overpowered. What? How exciting. It's just a good thing that when two people point magical wands at each other it looks cool and macho on screen.
Potter fans might argue that in order to appreciate HPatDH:P2 I'd need to watch all 90 previous Harry Potter movies. Hey, I may have more free time than anyone I know but life's too short for this wizards and warlocks crap.
4/10.
Total "Top 250" Movies Seen: 360.
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