Sci-Fi Storm

The Kid Who Lived is living on quite well, as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, the conclusion of the Harry Potter film franchise, brought in $169.2 million in the U.S. box office alone, and another $312.3 million internationally in its opening weekend, beating total projections and breaking the records for best debut domestically and globally. In addition, 43% of the intake in the U.S. was from 3D showings, while a whopping 60% internationally were 3D.

We saw it Saturday in IMAX/3D (we intended to see a midnight showing, but we had to change), and the 3D was great – it wasn’t in your face, but in fact you forget it is in 3D after a short time – and I mean that in the sense that you are generally not conscious of the 3D and the artifacts often seen with it.

The movie was superb and an excellent conclusion to the story. Interestingly, it only comprises about the last third of the book, with the first part taking the other two. That’s due to the amount of action taking place, which rarely stops once it gets going (it starts slowly at the beach cottage where the first part left off).

If you have any emotional investment in the characters, bring tissues.

Interestingly, there were several key scenes where the crowd laughed out loud or cheered – something I haven’t seen in a movie theater in years.

As can be expected, not everything from the book is in the movie – and although I think some of the missing scenes might have better explained a few things (for instance, Teddy Lupin, the son of Remus Lupin and Tonks, gets a quick mention in a key scene but isn’t metioned before when it would have added to the emotion of a later scene), but the movie generally didn’t suffer from their absence.

I’m saddened that this is the end…at least for now. Who knows what J.K. Rowling might have up her sleeve…