Critics report: Harry Potter is pure magic on screen

A harassed, unsure young boy stumbles into his 'real' identity through a magic portal on a station. The boy grows up, makes friends, falls in love, but he is no ordinary little British boy. He is Harry Potter.

Millions of fans living a fantasy through the life of this boy wizard, bid a sometimes tearful, sometimes hysterical farewell to Harry and the gang as the final film hits theatres.

Harry potter, Hermoine Granger and Ron Weasly are not children anymore, much like the actors who played the lead characters. The world grew up with these three as they went from vulnerable, awkward kids to full-fledged wizards. This time it's war. The search for the last Horcrux reaches a whirlwind climax.

The mature, reasoned performances by the three has been critically acclaimed. The film gets a serious, grown-up tone from the very beginning thanks to their acting prowess.

"The performances by all the actors are, as always, worth acknowledging. There is a visible maturity in the acts of the leading trio, Radcliffe in particular, as you notice a Harry Potter shorn of the histrionics of previous installments. Alan Rickman has given us yet another unforgettable performance as Professor Severus Snape," says Pankit Narang for Apunkachoice.

David Yates gets to the point in this film. The film is a satisfying grey throughout, keeping with tone of the story.

But Voldemort is the most overwhelming of all characters. An NDTV Movies reviews says, "This is such great screen villainy it makes you regret there wasn’t more of Voldemort all along and more too of his incarnations as another gifted boy wizard, Tom Riddle. "

The film, great as it were, is unable to shrug off the limitations of movies adapted from books. The NDTV Movies review continues, "The books, fat with detail and detours into the past, gave J K Rowling loads of room to play. With only two or so hours of story time, the movies have been forced to sacrifice swaths of her material, and while the scripts have been largely models of adaptation... the emphasis on action (and interminable games of quidditch) was also a concession to the action-imperative of the modern blockbuster."

Nevertheless, the last Harry Potter film can safely be said to be the best. So Rowling and Yates, with help from screenplay writer Steve Kloves, did in fact save the best for the last.

"It’s a perfect farewell to the wizard boy, a film that leaves you thoroughly entertained but with a niggle of wistful sadness that you just witnessed the swansong of the character that sprinkled a bit of magic in your bitingly real world," concludes Pankit.