Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 – review

Trio's finale ... Emma Watson, Rupert Grint and Daniel Radcliffe. Photograph: Jaap Buitendijk/AP

The Potter saga could hardly have ended on a better note than this final movie, for which an extended version of this notice appeared last week. With one miraculous flourish of its wand, the franchise has restored the essential magic to the Potter legend, zapping us all with a cracking final chapter. It's dramatically satisfying, spectacular and terrifically exciting.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2Production year: 2011Country: Rest of the worldCert (UK): 12ARuntime: 130 minsDirectors: David YatesCast: Alan Rickman, Billy Nighy, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Thompson, Emma Watson, Gary Oldman, Helena Bonham Carter, Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon, Ralph Fiennes, Rupert GrintMore on this film

Here is where the Harry Potter series gets its groove back, with a final confrontation between Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) and our young hero, and the sensational revelation of Harry's destiny. When stout-hearted young Neville Longbottom (a scene-stealer from Matthew Lewis) steps forward to denounce the dark lord in the final courtyard scene, I was on the edge of my seat.

The colossal achievement of this series really is something to wonder at. The Potter movies showed us their characters getting older in real time: unlike Just William or Bart Simpson, Daniel Radcliffe's Potter was going to grow up like a normal person and never before has any film – or any book – brought home to me how terribly brief childhood is. The Potter movies weren't just an adaptation of a series of books, but a living, evolving collaborative phenomenon. The movies developed just behind the books, and it's surely impossible to read them without being influenced by the films.

In this final episode, Harry (Radcliffe), Hermione (Emma Watson) and Ron (Rupert Grint) continue their battle to find and destroy the "horcruxes" that the sinister Voldemort needs to stay alive for all eternity.

There are some superb set-piece scenes – and now that the plot has got so much more zing, these scenes have a power that comparable moments in earlier movies did not have. When Harry, Ron and Hermione insinuate themselves into Gringotts bank, the effect is bizarre, surreal and macabre: drawing upon the influence of Lewis Carroll and Terry Gilliam. It is a great moment when Severus Snape, played with magnificently adenoidal disdain by Alan Rickman, is attacked by Voldemort's snake Nagini, and we witness this only from behind a frosted glass screen – a nice touch from director David Yates. London-dwelling Potter fans will, as before, be intrigued to see how the ornate St Pancras railway station is used to represent King's Cross, from where the Hogwarts train traditionally departs. Millions of tourists are undoubtedly convinced that this building is, in fact, King's Cross. It may be forced simply to change its name.

We get passionate, but somehow touchingly innocent screen kisses between Harry and Ginny (Bonnie Wright) and of course between Ron and Hermione. But these love stories are always subordinate to the all-important battle between good and evil. This is such an entertaining, beguiling, charming and exciting picture. It reminded me of the thrill I felt on seeing the very first one, 10 years ago. PB

See Peter Bradshaw's full review at guardian.co.uk/film

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