The Harry Potter franchise is finished and after 1,178 minutes I think it is fair to pose the question, what was the point of all that? Other than the $7.5 billion from cinema admissions, of course.

If you're a fan it will all have made perfect sense and Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part 2 will probably be all you want it to be – the audience at my screening burst into rapturous applause at the end. But anyone outside the faith will be disappointed.

The series has been an honourable endeavour and you appreciate that the producers have tried to do it properly but ultimately these haven't been adaptations but illustrations; a selection of often very striking images to accompany your reading pleasure.

In its last instalment Rowling's tale again manages to be less than the sum of its borrowings. The story is stubbornly uninteresting.

Nothing happens yet there is a constant twitter of plot, delivered with little indication as to which bits might actually be important. It is like taking the exam after an exhaustive and particularly dull history course.

The Potters pose as a saga but play out like a super compressed soap opera. At the start Warwick Davis pops in as a goblin. He has his little sub-plot that takes about 20 minutes and then disappears, back to the holding chamber of inconsequential Potter characters whose storylines have briefly taken centre stage before being written out.

The story hasn't built over the years, just extended.

The long anticipated big showdown between Potter and Captain Bunged Up has been over-hyped in a way that would shame a boxing match on Sky. And it's just as underwhelming.

The outcomes of these stick pointing contests seem entirely arbitrary.

Helena Bonham- Carter and Julie Walters wand off to the death at one point and there is nothing to indicate why one of them has triumphed.

Over the 20 hours I've been waiting for the outstretched hand to welcome me aboard or some clue as to what it is that people find so enthralling about the books but it remains as big a mystery as it was 10 years ago.

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 2 (12A)

Director: David Yates

With: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Ralph, Fiennes, Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith.

Length: 130 mins

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