Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt 2 - contains spoilers

I was excited about seeing Harry Potter 7B weeks before. When I jumped off the bus on Friday morning, I practically ran to the cinema. The staff looked quite perky for 9:30 am, as they usually don't start on a weekday for another four hours.

Got my ticket and took my seat in cinema - there were about 10 of us. Cue adverts and movie trailers - the Smurfs looks funny, but then as usually happens, all the funny bits might be in the trailer. The Smurfs was one of my favourite cartoons when I was younger. I enjoyed it even more when I was in Italy for five months whilst travelling - it never got old that the Smurfs were speaking Italian and that they are called I Puffi. There was an interview on italian TV, and a very butch looking Italian man with a very deep voice said "a mi piace I Puffi". I nearly wet myself, as it was so unexpected.

Harry Potter 7B picks up where 7A left off, namely Voldemort picking up the elder wand from Dumbledore's grave and pointing it towards the sky. This movie is very dark in tone and look. It is one of the reasons why I refuse to see it in 3D, as 3D drains all the colour from a movie anyway, with the exception of Avatar.

Ron, Harry and Hermoine are reunited and looking for the remaining Horcruxes - Helga Hufflepuff's Cup (Hermoine destroys), Rowena Ravenclaw's Diadem (Harry destroys and Ron gives it the final kick), Nagini (Neville Longbottom destroys like a knight understanding his destiny) and the final Horcrux unbeknownst to Harry is himself.

The HP3 manage to romp through destroying the Horcruxes quite quickly. I think that is one of my issues with the movies. It shouldn't be this easy to find the Horcruxes. Maybe that is my issue because some appeared in the books and were destroyed without knowing their significance. Their destruction in some instances was a footnote to Harry. Dumbledore obviously suspected, but it was only confirmed in The Deathly Hallows book.

Snape is definitely not as his most potent in this film. I'm sure that the fate of Harry Potter is weighing heavily on him. I really enjoyed Snape when he would speak through clenched teeth, drawn out tones and bringing a real sense of menace to the films. As with the books, when you understand Snape's motivation, his malevolence dissapates. His hair and skin certainly look well-cared for in this movie.

The Snape memories sequence/big reveal was wonderfully handled. I felt a whole newfound respect for the restraint that Snape had shown (much the same way Emma Thompson did Sense and Sensibility) as he went about keeping his promise to Dumbledore.

It was terrible to see what has become of Lucius Malfoy (but then that's personal, as I love Jason Isaacs and think that his force was spent at the end of the Chamber of Secrets when Dobby was made a free elf (and in my head, the Lady Gaga line - "cause I'm a free bitch baby" always appears), and Malfoy has been in decline ever since and he looks it). Hello to Jason Isaacs!

As I was watching this film, in the back of my mind I could hear "The End" by the Doors, and I was passively sad, but it didn't detract from my enjoyment of the film. What did though is the battle scenes. They simply weren't long enough. This is your swansong Harry Potter (franchise), and you should go out with a bang. It felt to me as if there were too much editing, and scenes that should have had a proper set pieces were footnotes -

1) Tonks and Remus death
2) Fred Weasley death
3) one of the Patil twins (can't remember which) death

4) Mrs. Weasley and Bellatrix le Strange battle (this had the feeling of Raiders of the Lost Ark when Harrison Ford had fought all the guys, and the really impressive one came with his knife skills and HF thought fuck this and just shot him). That should have been EPIC and it was a very short heart leap.

5) Harry and Lord Voldemort battle (felt very Star Wars without the action and by that I mean the battle between Darth Vader and Obi Wan Kenobi complete with different colour light sabre beams) - this particular battle was one of wills, which is fine, but I had seen it all before. This really should have been presented in a more original way and been longer. Maybe, there is only so much you can do with a wand fight, but I don't think that's true.

When Voldemort is finally despatched, I thought that scene was beautifully realised. He looked like he was almost ready to go by then. Voldemort never understood the power of collective over the dominance of one. Ralph Fiennes played the role with increasing ferocity, savagery and inhumanity. What Fiennes also brought to the role was a slow dawning vulnerability as each Horcrux was destroyed. Deep in his mind I'm sure was the thought - how could this 18 year old defeat ME.

After the final Hogwarts' battle, the school looks post-apocalyptic - think The Road or any post apocalyptic sci-fi movie you've ever seen. Everything is in muted greys and beiges and looks dusty. The heroes are the only ones with any colour to them.

The funniest scene, I think, was the Sisyphufean task of Filch was trying to do by sweeping rubble. The look on his face was priceless and he knew he just had to get on with it. Although thinking about it now, of course they would magic Hogwarts back together or would they? And what I mean by that is would it be more satisfying to build Hogwarts up brick by brick rather than using magic?

The very end was wonderful and really was a circle of life moment. My only problem was the clothes everyone was wearing. They were so frumpy, and I suspect that Hermoine's coat was Burberry!

And lest I forget, the hero of this movie and the person who has grown the most from the The Order of the Phoenix through to now is Neville Longbottom. He was heroic in every sense of the word - he gave the Henry V speech (in your face Voldermort), he constantly stuck his hand up to say yes of course we can do this, and he was the natural leader, ever cheerful and inspiring when necessary.

Harry Potter was an ordinary boy thrust into extraordinary circumstances (eight movies), and Daniel Radcliffe always played him as such. Hermoine was always brilliant and Ron was always the perfect sidekick.

What I didn't get from this was the sense that the people in the cinema didn't think it was time for the end. Once it was over, that was it. There was no lingering in the audience to applaud or reflect on the journey that eight movies have taken us through, and that is a bit sad, but some of the other Harry Potter movies that were longer felt more emotional. I think that was partly what was missing here. There wasn't much humour, so although I liked it a lot, I don't think I connected fully with it.

Mischief managed, now get back to your lives!