Bingowings said:

Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 2.

I finally got the dvd and like two before it the literally dark scenes were practically black.

At times this film became a noisy audio adventure.

I just saw this for the first time last night. We watched 7 and 8 basically as one long movie starting Monday and finishing Tuesday night.

We watched it home and I never found any of it to be too dark (and this was in 3D, which is often assumed to be darker than 2D). Perhaps your display isn't cable or properly calibrated? I thought there was a great overall tone to the picture. The thought- "too dark" never occured to me. It's also possible the DVD is too dark compared to either the regular BD or the 3D BD, but I don't suppose so.

Bingowings said:

There was very little tension in the big confrontation and very little sense of actual peril despite the number of people lying around on the floor apparently dead.

Maybe it's because you already knew who lived and who died at the end. ;)

You can hardly blame the movie for that.

I, on the other hand, have a terrible memory for the book so watching the movie was like wading through very dull memories and a lot of the ending was a surprise to me. I found to be tense and emotional. The visual destruction of Hogwarts gave a great sense of melancholy that I don't think is quite possible from the written word.

I found the extra time (about 4.5 hours total) acquired in delivering the movie in 2 parts to be well used and to allow the many events to be shown without crushing the scope of the piece. I've heard people say that they thought it was drawn out and really should have been confined to one 2.5 - 3 hour film, and I just can't disagree strongly enough.

A solid ending to a great series (how often does that really happen? practically never).

3/3 Deathly Hallows

7/7 Polyjuice Potters