Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 Review

Disclaimer, I have neither read nor seen any movies related to Harry Potter, so if I leave out something important, my bad.  This is a personal review of the movie.  This review will contain some spoilers, so be warned.  

Story

Harry Potter, who's about to be 17, and his two friends, Ron and Hermione, are trying to find the 3 remaining Horcruxes which are the Achilles' heel of the main villain, Voldemort.  Through the quest of finding these Horcruxes, the three friends face all sorts of dangers, but like all stories, the good is victorious and evil is vanquished.  

Themes

The most obvious theme is the fight between good and evil, but one unique thing that this movie brought to the table was the question: where do we go when we die?  When Harry was struck down, he woke up in a cleaner and much brighter London King's Cross railway station where he hooked up with Dumbledore.  Come to find out, the place was a wizard's "Purgatory" but the wizard had a choice to go back to earth or go to a better place.  Besides having that religious theme in there, the movie used two other themes:  sacrifice for the greater good, as well as, friendship is better than power. 

Presentation

The overall mood of the movie was of despair and helplessness and was portrayed perfectly by the lighting in each scene.  As the movie came to a close, the lighting and mood slowly became bright and happy.  Each fight scene made you think you were part of it with the amazing sound effects doing their part, making you feel the impact of each blast fired. While some people would say that there were too many silent moments where no music was present, I think it made the scene even more impacting.  Finally, unlike some movies that are an end to a series, this movie wrapped every loose end into a nice package.  So much so that, for someone who didn't know anything about Harry Potter, I was satisfied and could follow it clearly.

Verdict

So overall, it is a great movie to watch and the diehard fans will probably agree with me and it gets a 8.5 out of 10 in my book.

   

Source Code

With so many movies coming out lately, it's hard to find one that has an original plot line.  Even though the way I would describe the movie as a combination of Vantage Point and Inception, it has a very unique story.  The main character is Captain Colter Stevens who takes the identity of Sean Fentress by using the Source Code, a program that relives someone's last 8 minutes before that person died, to figure out who bombed a train.  Captian Stevens relives Sean's last 8 minutes in the train several times, every time gaining another clue to the location of the bomb and who the bomber was.

There were several themes that resounded throughout the movie, but two of them that I really liked were, should you pull the plug on someone who is half dead and living your life the fullest.  It was really neat to watch how the story unfolded, because there were three parts where my friend and I were thinking, how are they going to resolve this?  Not to mention that the ending had a crazy twist to it.  So without giving more away than I already have, this movie is a must see. Though it might not be what you think when you see the poster for it, the story is good and will have you thinking about it after the credits.

Life in the Fast Lane

I have been fascinated by the recent skyrocket in technology in the past 5 years.  It seems like yesterday that cellphones were one piece blocks containing a screen and the number pad.  Now we have flat smart  phones like the Samsung Captivate, phones that have a sliding keyboard like the Droid, and even the Go phones have a uniqueness about them.  Computers have also have improved as well.  Instead of having huge monitors that you have to try to balance on your small desk and putting a CPU underneath the desk where you barely have enough room for your feet in the first place, now you have a computer call the I-Mack that is a all in one.  Gaming graphics have also improved.  From Nintendo 64's ok but pixelated graphics to the PS3's Blue Ray graphics, we have come a long way.

Even though these improvements are great, it seems that our lives are more hectic than they were.  I'm not proposing that we should not use these improvements, but it's something I've been observing lately.  When something new comes out, a new set of problems comes with it.  So even though being able to wirelessly print from a laptop is great, someone has to set it up and keep it working.  Having a Facebook, Twitter, or a Blog is great for getting your thoughts out or socializing with your friends, but some people have to check these almost every other minute.  Texting is another thing that people are getting obsessed about.  Every group that I've been in, at lest one person is checking their phone to see if they got a test or they are texting someone.  My thoughts are, why be in a group if you are going to text every other minute, you are bound to miss something that the group says, and in my opinion, it's not respectful for others.  I would say, text when you are by yourself.  So that's my spill, thanks for reading if you did.

Chapter 12: My Communities

Where I live is in the country, so I don't live in "community", but just about half a mile down the road there is a mobile home community.  The book also defined community as "a group of people having common interests."  So I guess you can call Tae-Kwon-Do a community because the common interest is martial arts. I was part of a speech and debate community for 4 years.  And last of all my family, common goals and we live together.  The community of Tae-Kwon-Do was a great experience.  Through my 7 years of martial arts, Tae-Kwon-Do has given me an instructor's collar, perseverance, boldness, and integrity.  Being able to teach little kids what I know and loved was a great thing that I gave back.  I've quit Tae-Kwon-Do because of college, but when I go back, I don't think there's anything I would like to change.    

Chapter 11: Money Personality

Since I was very young, my mom has taught my siblings and me how to use money.  When ever we wanted to buy something, we would have to wait for a week then once that week was over, if we still would want to buy it, we could.  I still have that mentality today.  When ever I think of buying something, I will say to my self, do I really need it?  I'm not a big spender, but if were to buy something, it would be something I really needed.  I don't have a personal bank account, so I don't have a credit card.  If I did have a credit card, I would be so careful with it because I have heard enough stories of people going into debt because of a piece of plastic.  Over all I think I handle money very well, I don't treat my self to Starbucks or Ices, but when I do buy, it was thought over carefully.            

Chapter 10: Addictions

I guess you can call me addicted to video games.  Whenever I go over to my friends house, we talk a little bit, but mainly we play video games the rest of the time I'm there.  During the day I do think about the games I've played or going to play as well.  Luckily I don't have access to playing video games whenever I want.  My mom has a policy when she and Dad go out, my brother and I can play xbox.  It's such a good system because I would get a break from games for a whole month then the next month, I would be able to play for 3 to 5 days in a row for 5 hours each day depending on how often they would go out.  So as I've said before, I'm "addicted to games" but with my mom's policy, I'm restricted from being totally addicted to video games.  

Chapter 9: Discrimination and Prejudice

Have I ever been discriminated or had any prejudice against me?  Not really, but when I was little, I would wanted to play with the big kids, but they say no I was too young or little.  If that is discrimination then I guess yes then.  Have I ever acted Prejudice?  Yep, I don't think you can't have any prejudices thoughts.  When I have this feeling of prejudice I would either get mad or think that I'm way better than that person.  I don't show that I have prejudice against this person on the out sided, but I would think those thoughts in my head, but that's not good either.  I'm working on not having any prejudice ideas.