Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone Review
by Jerry Saravia (faust668 AT aol DOT com)December 10th, 2001
HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE (2001)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
December 8th, 2001
RATING: 2 stars
Harry Potter has become a hero for children and adults alike in the last couple of years. I suppose this is a good thing considering that Potter's origins stem from books and if young kids are reading books, then that is always cause for celebration. I have not read any of the books but I am considering reading the first book, just to get a taste of what is delighting kids so much nowadays. The movie version of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" gives me little enthusiasm though, a loud, frenetic comic book movie that has plenty of good ideas but has no idea how to orchestrate them into a whole movie.
In the opening scene, Harry Potter is an abandoned baby found by wizards from the Hogwarts school who is given to a good family to be taken care of. Good family? I should think not. The next scene shows an 11-year-old Harry Potter (played by Daniel Radcliffe), as we learn that his parents were killed by an evil wizard named Voldemort who left Harry with a scar on his forehead. Potter lives with his mother's sister and her family, which includes her mail-hating husband and their son. They are all mean to Harry and keep him in a closet staircase as if he was an animal. Letters are sent everyday to Harry from owls. It turns out the letters are from the Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft and they want Harry to attend. Thanks to a hulking man named Rubeus Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane), Harry is sent off to the school, picking up an appropriate wand and other magic devices for his training (there is even a bank for wizards!). He arrives at the school and becomes friends with Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) and Hermi
one Granger (Emma Watson), though Granger seems to be the one who actually reads the assigned books. So we see floating candles above the dining room, snappy professors, goblins, rampaging giant trolls, mirrors that may tell information about the past and future, invisible cloaks, and a dangerous game called Quidditch. Oh, and how can one omit the use of magic brooms! I have heard complaints from real witches that brooms are to be ridden with the bundle of straw on the front, not the back, and am still waiting for a movie to get that detail right.
Most of this sounds like great fun, and some of it is. But I felt curiously uninvolved throughout "Harry Potter," as well as detached from the characters, including the beaming Mr. Potter himself. He is always smiling and almost always triumphant but he possesses no individual personality. It is not Radcliffe's fault but one wishes director Columbus and writer Steven Kloves ("The Fabulous Baker Boys") instilled some dimension in this brave tyke. Same with most of the other young wizards except for the clever Hermione, a girl who spends her time telling Potter and Weasley secrets of wizardry and the inner secrets of the teachers at Hogwarts. She is strong and determined and educated, qualities that Potter seems to lack.
"Harry Potter" never quite feels magical or joyous. There is no actual sense of fun or adventure either. Part of the problem is the film has too many close-ups which cramp the screen - there are too few exterior shots to convey a mood or sense of place. The entrance to the Hogwarts school is mystical and magical but what takes place inside is not. Columbus's use of close-ups in movies like "Mrs. Doubtfire" and "Home Alone" worked but a magical adventure like this needs some spaciousness, some sense of mysticism. After all, this world in "Harry Potter" is entirely fictional.
The special-effects are well-done but are too frenzied and cramped, as if the editor lost patience and kept cutting away too fast before the next scene took place. The Quidditch sequence is a highlight as it depicts a game where an orb has to be caught and thrown through a hoop by the players riding on brooms - sort of a high-flying hockey game. But as soon as the sequence begins, there is discoloration in the scene, as if it was overcast considering it takes place outdoors. The beginning of the scene shows vibrant colors but then the special effects take over and desaturate whatever color there was. This is one more example why CGI effects do not always work, and one of the reasons why similar outdoor shots in "Gladiator," specifically the arena, also looked faded and colorless. Other effects involving the giant troll and a centaur are wondrous to watch but the three-headed dog leaves something to be desired.
On the plus side, the performances by titanic actors like Alan Rickman (my favorite in this cast) as Professor Snapes, the teacher of the dark arts, Maggie Smith as the stern Headmistress Mistress McGonagall, who can turn into a cat, and Richard Harris, the serene Albus Dumbledore who looks like Merlin, are all terrific and filled with wit and energy. Unfortunately, they do not occupy much screen time, leaving it all to the tykes who did not exactly rouse me or get me in the mood for their adventures.
Yes, "Harry Potter" might please kids and readers of the best-selling books no matter what I have to say. But consider "Young Sherlock Holmes," written by Mr. Columbus himself, an imagined look at Holmes in his youth solving a case in London. It was involving and exciting and had a definite sense of adventure and some magic. Also worth seeing is "The Witches," which is about tykes that change into rats under the spell of a mean witch (Anjelica Huston). Both of these films involved kids or teens caught in a dangerous world of supernatural circumstances, some seen and others unseen. The elements of a great adventure about a young wizard in training had lots of potential. Columbus turns it into a harmless, impersonal film. Maybe he just needed a magic wand.
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