Yeah... spoilers. (If you haven't read the book, of course.)

The biggest problem with dividing the movie version of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows into two parts was always going to be that the middle third of that book isn't exactly brimming over with triumphant and joyful rainbows and lollipops. Ordinarily in an episodic serial the like of this one, we tend to get small payoffs along the way to the more climactic victory, each installment coming to a satisfying conclusion even if an over-arching and meta cliffhanger still looms. So how, I had long wondered, would the folks at Potter Central deal with that issue? At what point in the all-pervasive bleakness of… well, the majority of The Deathly Hallows, would they find us our moment of the happy on which to bring down the curtain, and usher in Part 2?

As it turns out, they just… don’t. The movie simply ends, very abruptly and on what can only be described on the biggest downer since those plucky fisherman all died at the end of The Perfect Storm.

Boo.

You know, it’s a real shame that this sudden and most non-triumphant To Be Continued left me with such a bad taste in my mouth, because everything that came before it was simply, wondrously, gob-smackingly marvelous from start to (almost) finish. Well written, beautifully executed with superlative performances and a pitch-perfect score, this is a movie full of tension and humor and romance and drama and action and suspense and oh, so much more.

Ah, y’know what? Forget about that bad taste. ‘Cause thinking back now to all the deliciousness that preceded it, all is forgiven.

From the opening scene, this movie took hold of my central nervous system and bent it to its will like a kid kneading Play-Doh. Where I was supposed to laugh, I laughed. Where I was supposed to cry, I cried. Where I was supposed to be shocked, or scared, or concerned, or outraged, I was all of those things, and more besides. The Deathly Hallows takes you on a tumultuous emotional journey, from beginning to lamentable end, as though your heart were lodged inside that runaway flying car in which Harry and Ron arrived at Hogwarts in The Chamber of Secrets – after which it then gets thoroughly beaten up by the Whumping Willow.

We open, of course, with Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) in peril; the Dark Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) wants him dead and the Order of the Phoenix folks make an appearance, acting as decoys to see him safe at the ancestral home of the Weasley family. We meet yet another Weasley, Bill (how much must the red-haired actors of England be loving J. K. Rowling? Gingers never had it so good), who is soon to marry the lovely Fleur Delacour, last seen in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

But the apparently treacherous Severus Snape (Alan Rickman) reveals to Voldemort the date on which Harry is to leave the -- one would think -- dubious protection of Privet Drive… and the Death Eaters attack! Losses are taken, but Harry makes it to The Burrow. There’s a little romantic-tension foreshadowing and some convenient bequests made by the dearly departed Dumbledore… and then, the Death Eaters attack! Again! The Ministry of Magic is under new management, and soon begins to spout anti-Potter and anti-Muggle rhetoric (the movie hitting home the Aryan Nation metaphor even harder than the book managed to accomplish).

Voldemort rules them all, and in the darkness binds them.

Harry, Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson), meanwhile, are all alone and on the run in search of the separated pieces of Voldemort’s soul -- horcruxes -- that, if destroyed, will kill him dead. Voldemort is also searching for something: the means to become master of Death, clues to which can apparently be found in a children’s story… and, incidentally, he still looks kind of like a baby doll whose head got melted in an unfortunate microwave mishap, but is none the less e-Vil for all that.

But for all else that is going on, this is pretty much Team Harry’s show for the remainder of the movie. We have occasional sights of various pro- and anti-Potterites: Evanna Lynch as Luna Lovegood continues to delight, and Helena Bonham Carter, as the sociopathic Bellatrix Lestrange, is as captivatingly mad as ever; the Hogwarts train full of all our old friends gets what amounts to a cameo; and the scene where Harry, Ron and Hermione infiltrate the Ministry of Magic using the shape-shifting Polyjuice Potion is very well done -- much kudos must go to the actors who play our disguised heroes, and in particular to David O’Hara, who plays the meatsuit-wearing Harry and even gives us Radcliffe’s distinctive, halting gait. But for the most part, we spend a lot of time in the company of our Big Three… and then, for what seems like a really long time, it’s The Harry and Hermione Show, a kind of fugitives-from-justice buddy movie that is… well, very sweet.

Emma Watson and Daniel Radcliffe have impeccable chemistry and infuse their characters’ interactions with the kind of unthinking, unconscious intimacy that comes from long and close acquaintance. Harry and Hermione complete each others’ thoughts and can read arcane meaning in a single glance, and yet theirs’ is clearly a deeply platonic love, and one that Ron tragically misunderstands. Rupert Grint is also worthy of particular praise here; from comic relief to bitter rival to lovelorn swain, he brings the Ron of the book to vivid and upsetting life; you can feel his torment as the One Ring… I mean, the horcrux locket… turns him into a monster.

The two hours and change of this movie fly by, and yet so much happens that, in retrospect, it seems like it must have been a longer film. And yet nothing feels omitted or rushed or glossed over… although the final deus ex Dobby was, perhaps, a little too heavily signposted.

Speaking of which, there is a lot of death in the movie, both seen and merely referenced. If you’re planning to take the kids to see this one, and you have kids who frighten easily, then take my advice and don’t. The later Harry Potter books are questionable children’s fare; this movie is emphatically anything but a kid flick.

It is also, without a doubt, the best Harry Potter movie yet -- which is pretty impressive, considering I wouldn’t have accounted the book upon which it’s based even in the series’ Top 5. I’ll go even further and say that this may be the best movie adaptation of a book in recent memory. (And yes, I’m counting my beloved Eclipse in that statement.)

Okay, so I wasn’t thrilled with the ending. But upon reflection, it may just be that I wasn’t thrilled that it ended it all; certainly, July 2011 cannot get here soon enough. And in the meantime, at least we have the book... and considering they were able to produce this great of a movie out of only the first half of it, then perhaps it’s time I gave it another go.

  -- Rachel Hyland