Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
I haven’t read the books. Not one of them. I don’t have any of the trading cards. I don’t eat the candy. And I don’t wash with the bath soap. But Harry Potter stuff is everywhere, and my first glimpse into this world that has swept all over the world, was in our local Academy cinema.
It’s in the spirit of the classic children’s movies (albeit a little frightening for the youngins). It’s story has Harry and co learning at a school, and then using the things they’ve learned in the final crescendo scenes of the film. The characters, the music, the style.. all classic “magical” stuff. And there’s nothing complicated about any of it. Any questions raised during the story are given explanations, and it all ends happily ever after.
With this in mind, you should enjoy Harry Potter. And that’s the way it should be! It’s made to be enjoyed, and make you feel like a kid again. But I can also see how easy it is to be cynical about the whole thing.
The movie flows from Harry learning something to Harry smiling to Harry discovering something to Harry smiling to Harry winning something to Harry smiling.. The special fx are fantastic, except for some of the broom-stick flying stuff (i.e. The Quiddich Match) where the blue-screen/cgi work incorporating our heroes looks quite fake from time to time. In fact, I find a lot of these “new” types of effect shots (like having a computer generated object, in full detail, in the same frame as regular people and scenery) just a little out of place in a movie that goes for the “classic” look and feel of a magical children’s story. Or when someone’s flying around, and they’re held in the centre of the frame, with all the scenery whizzing around, blurred, behind them. It doesn’t bring you into the picture, and can become quite disorienting. Ahh, the CGI lament.
The links between scenes are alright for a novel adaptation, but flimsy at worst. The kids acting is _much_ better than those in The Phantom Menace, but still I’ve seen better. But then again, none of this is really important! It made me want to think and feel things like a child again, and I’m sure when I see it again, I’ll appreciate it all the more. The Lord Of The Rings will be ok if it equals Harry in style and content. But I don’t want LOTR to just be ok.. :-)
The Magikal Mystery Thor
For the most part, I agree with you. I can’t understand what the kids find so great about this story. The reason I went to the movie was to try to solve this puzzle, but coming out of the cinema I realised the mystery had only deepened. It’s so unoriginal I couldn’t believe it. No new monsters, the usual trolls, goblins, unicorns etc. There are plenty of other “witch/wizard coming of age” stories. About the only thing Rowling created (with her “amazing” imagination) was the “quiddich” sport, which doesn’t even make sense! It’s as if the sport was invented for the sole reason of giving the fetcher (Harry) a big climactic winning point! Read the Self Made Critic’s review for more on that... http://www.brunching.com/selfmade
I disagree that the special effects are any good. The CG is really bad. Not up to scratch at all. They look even worse after seeing the LOTR trailer prior to the movie. It is especially bad when they try to animate humans. Technology just isn’t ready for that. Then they try to integrate animated people with the real ones and it just looks shocking. e.g. when the fat kid gets thrown off his broomstick; when Harry is on the troll etc... Sure they are probably better than half the kids’ movies out there, but this is a big-budget blockbuster!
“Fluffy” sticks out like a sore thumb against the background of the movie, the snake is worse than the one in “the Jungle Book” all those years ago, etc. etc. etc. However, the make-up, costumes and sets are quite good. Anything “real” is fine. It’s just the cheap CGI that lets it down. Now, the rest of the movie...
Boring!!!!
That’s all there is to it. It’s so slow, it lacks any kind of
“magic”. Harry should get _swept_ into the world of Hogwarts;
instead he takes his time, goes shopping, has countless stupid expressions on
his face as he is amazed at every little thing. The “world” needed
to be more original or nonsensical but it sticks firmly to the same old formula.
The story is even worse — for most of the movie you are wondering what the
story actually is! “How is this going to reach a climax?...”
“oh, how magical, a giant chess game where the pieces smash each other
up...
...haven’t I seen this before??”
Every time there is a “revelation” in the plot (which should keep you interested) you see it coming a mile off and so get very bored. And there’s 2 1/2 hours of this!
Most of the kid actors just scrape by as being ok, but Harry sucks! They only cast him because he looks like HP. Maybe it was also the directing of the kids, I swear they used the most stupid expressions they could find in the editing room. The adult actors are ok, but you get the feeling that they don’t understand how popular this story is and so give a half-hearted effort. John Williams pretty much just re-recorded his Hook score so there’s nothing great there.
Conclusion: kids should read the The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe series if they want a good fantasy story. Or they should look for Labyrinth or The Sword in the Stone. This must be a case of “I like it because all the other kids like it”. It’s really just a rehash of countless other stories. Don’t go see this if you want to find out what all the fuss is about. Don’t take really young kids either. I’m sure the only people who should see it are those who are fans of the books. And be prepared to sit with noisy kids who couldn’t even sit still through an 80 minute movie, let alone this.
Jonathan Luke Rossiter
Alice Springs correspondent
Harry Potter wasn’t that popular once, so it’s really OK. Being a member of the popularity police too (if everyone likes something it has to be crap — it’s true!), I was dismayed to find HP was suddenly everywhere. However, when the books were being published there was no merchandising — that came recently with the film launch. So I think it’s OK not to bag HP as an exercise in empty, cynical moneymaking and let this dreaded popularity thing [shudder] pass by. :-P
The books are popular with the 20something+ market because, like the Muppets I guess, they have some adult humour (in the polite sense of the word ‘adult’) along with the entertaining children’s adventure stories (which is what attracts the kiddies). That’s it, really, the Harry Potter books are children’s adventure stories with characters children can identify with. Frankly, your average 12 year old isn’t going to be gripped by a 600 page novel making insightful and witty commentary on the deconstruction of neo-Marxist doctrine in post World War 2 Serbian farming communities (for example). The originality lies in the blending of traditional children’s adventure and fantasy elements and the disarming characters and light tongue in cheek humour.
I haven’t seen the movie, so there I can’t comment, much to everyone’s relief.
Jonathan Pearce
Since the UK has started showing Harry Potter here last week, I thought I’d give a short review.
Story: Enjoyable. I’m informed by those who know the books that there are parts left out, but given it’s only a 2 hour have to, and if they’d been kept in, then I suspect that the movie would have been too slow.
Special effects: Settings were wonderful, and in general they were excellent, however they then used some cheap matte paintings and some terrible blue screening on a few occasions that then brought the overall quality down. I can assume they used this for cost purposes, but I’m surprised that in these days when effects are cheap that they’d resort to something so obvious.
Overall impression: I enjoyed it. The audience enjoyed it. It will appeal to the target audience, and it will appeal to a lot of other people. Worth the effort of seeing.
David Drury
