| Product: |
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (DVD) |
| Date: |
13/11/01 (305 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Beautiful design, Well produced, Rather engrossing
Disadvantages: Length (in both respects :-) )
For those who have been judging the validity of these opinions based on their authors previous Potter experience, I'm thoroughly inducted into Potterdom. Well, maybe not thoroughly, in that I have not spent vast sums of cash on tie-in merchandise, but I have thumbed (and enjoyed) all of Harry's textual adventures. It is fair to say that I was looking forward to the movie, even if the first book was structurally a hugely generic fantasy story. Add to that the fact that I already knew what was going to happen, not to mention the extended running length (some 2 1/2 hours), and it looked as if it could be a bit of a bore. Still, I had to see it anyway, and my thoughts follow...
**You're a wizard 'Arry**
For those who have been living under Mount Everest for the past few years (as I'm not really convinced a regular rock could provide sufficient sound insulation), I present the plot summary.
Harry lives with his aunt and uncle. His parents having died whilst Harry was an infant, Harry has had to suffer a menial living for years whilst his cousin Dudley is blatantly spoilt. As Harry's eleventh birthday approaches, something happens which has never happened before - Harry gets a letter. Well, not exactly 'gets', since his uncle recognises the insignia stamped on the back and promptly deposes of it. The sender, however, seems adamant that the young Potter should receive the letter, and Uncle Vernon finds himself disposing of an increasing number of envelopes on a day by bad basis until, eventually, a rather intimidating messenger of the sender turns up and reveals to Harry a secret which his uncle never wanted him to find out about - Harry is a wizard. Not only that, Harry is perhaps the most famous living wizard in the world, and has been offered a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Cue much magical hi-jinx with his friends Ron and Hermione.
**Bloody Brilliant**
Pott
er director Chris Columbus has a somewhat spotty past when it comes to movies. Whilst Columbus wrote Gremlins and co-wrote the cult kids classic The Goonies with Stephen Spielberg, has a director I cringe to mention some of his efforts. Harry Potter proves to be the exception.
To be fair, how much of this you can attribute to Columbus is debatable, at least when it comes to composition. There is little in the ways of inventive camera work for example. What is rather neat, however, is the design work. The world of Hogwarts is wonderfully realised. The superb costume and set design (when it wasn't filmed in Alnwick Castle at least) is complemented by excellent special effects work - the fact that they managed to make broom flight convincing is a feat in itself.
Opinion on the performances seem mixed. Generally I thought they were pretty good. Certainly, the adult cast were excellent. The child actors I didn't really have much of a problem with them either - although Emma Watsons portrayal of Hermione initially comes off as being rather overacted.
One complaint I have heard is that the movie has an over-abundance of upper middle-class accents. I really don't see the problem with this - at least where the main characters are involved. Harry's uncle Vernon is the director of a Drill manufacturer, and his family prides themselves on not mixing with the wrong sorts. Whilst poor, the Weasilys are a fairly established witching family, and Ron's father works in government. Hermiones parents are dentists, and presumably are pretty well off to be able to afford that level of education, and I can't see how Malfoy could be expected to speak another way.
A particular highlight for me was the Quidditch match (the sport of the Wizarding world for those who don't know), which proves to be one of the the most tightly edited action sequences since the Pod race in The Phantom Menace.
**Not all wizards are go
od**
The movie isn't without is flaws of course, most of which can be attributed to the length. Frankly, despite being two and a half hours long, it struggles to fit everything in. Its obvious that they were having trouble fitting all they wanted in, the movie being very tightly edited with barely a frame of film wasted. Whilst this does somewhat prevent the movie from getting too dull, it leads to a number of problems.
Chief among these, in my opinion, is that the scale of the movie really doesn't come across. Those familiar with the book will know that it takes place across the whole school year, but in the movie there often days (and even months) between scenes often with no way of telling.
The other problem is that the characters don't really get enough screen time to come across quite right. Whilst this effects Snape and Malfoy most specifically (Alan Rickman and Tom Feltman - both excellent coincidently), even the main characters don't come across quite right. As a result some scenes lose significance or feel out of place.
The editing of the movie seems to have been the the determent of the humour. Whilst the books where amusing, the movie is fairly dry - most the scenes featuring Fred and George Weasily and Neville have hit the cutting room floor, whilst Peeves (played by Rik Mayall) didn't make the final edit at all. If you take the kids expecting a comedy then you will be disappointed.
**Gotta buy them all - Pottermon**
For all the problems (and the over marketing of it all), I really did think the movie was excellent, but as with all these high budget movies peoples opinions are going to be mixed - my complete indifference to Star Wars shows. I suspect most are going to enjoy it to varying degrees mind you, as even the youngest (and oldest for that matter) members of the audience were riveted throughout. If nothing else, I'm looking forward to the sequel to further develop o
n top of the firm foundations this movie whilst hopefully correcting some of the problems (it probably helps that I thought that Chamber of Secrets was a much better book than 'Stone as well).
Recommended.
Summary:
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