Oscars in Black and White

The Nominations:

• Art Direction
• Makeup
• Visual Effects

The Black-and-White:

A review by cb450sc:

Well, this is a peculiar film to review. The finale to a multi-billion franchise, beloved by probably as nearly as many people. Let’s face it, at this point they could have had the three main characters dancing the can-can for an hour and people would still have paid to see it. In other words, we’re starting out with the bar set pretty low.

At that level, the film works. It’s a pretty faithful rendition of the second half of the final book. That last book, of course, weighs in at over 700 pages, hence the split into two movies. And therein lies the film’s flaw – there’s still too much to jam into two hours. Since this is the last time any of these characters will appear on film, and there’s literally an army of them, each character gets very little screen time or development. Furthermore, I imagine that every single viewer has read the book at this point, and knows exactly what will happen. It’s really hard to build any sense of suspense or urgency – during most of the film I found I was less watching the film and more waiting to see how the filmmaker rendered the scenes. It also didn’t help that the main characters were too old at this point – they’ve grown up faster than the films could be made (I understand Daniel Radcliffe has admitted being hung over in many scenes).

Still, it was nice to see the wrap-up, and to see the flash-forward at the end. They did a yeoman’s job.