Subject: Review: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001)

From: Harvey S. Karten <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Nov 2001 19:55:33 -0000

HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE

 Reviewed by Harvey Karten
 Warner Bros./ Heyday Films
 Director:  Chris Columbus
 Writer:  Steve Kloves, story by J.K. Rowling
 Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, John
Cleese, Robbie Coltrane, Warwick Davis, Richard Griffiths,
Richard Harris, Ian Hart, John Hurt, Alan Rickman, Fiona  Shaw,
Maggie Smith, Julie Walters
 Screened at: AMC NYC 11/12/01
     
    I spent my entire career teaching in New York City public high
schools, an advocate of educationally justified field
trips--particularly to the magic of theater and movies.  Not a
single year went by without my having to file forms in triplicate for
each excursion.  I had to wait for the chairman's signature, the
principal's imprimatur and the superintendent's stamp of approval
before I could even cross the street with a dozen youngsters. 
Imagine a school that not only awakened kids to even more
magic than the theater could provide but even subjected them to
dangers that could easily result in loss of life and limb!  This is
the situation posited by Chris Columbus's "Harry Potter and the
Sorcerer's Stone," based on the  popular novel by J.K.
Rowling which has been adapted by Steve Kloves and is
scheduled to break box office records.  Coming in a cost of $120
million--and don't even bother to estimate the heavy costs of
marketing the production--"Harry Potter" is chock full of wizardry,
sporting a splendid cast of British actors putting on their
classiest accents, and loaded with computer generated effects
that trump almost everything that existed before while still
providing a simulacrum of credibility.  Yet despite the input of all
that money can buy,this is no "Wizard of Oz" because "Potter"
feels as though it were a series of cleverly designed scenes
lacking in coherence to such a degree that one could not be
blamed for thinking that some of the scenes were copied and
pasted from its forthcoming annual sequels.

   That reservation aside--and it is a major drawback--
the movie, though targeted to children and lacking the kind of
satiric humor that many adults look for in such fare, goes by like
a shot, all two and o ne-half hours' worth.  Warner Bros. has
taken the risk of setting up a children's picture that goes far
beyond the usual 60-80 minutes that psychologists have insisted
are about the limit of a small fry's attention span.  Another risk
taken by the studio is to use an all British cast of performers,
most of whom are probably not known by the kids in the
audience and few by the majority of their escorts.  The big
advantage of this  is that kids accustomed to saying "like" and
"you know" and "cool" and speaking in phrases rather than
sentences can listen to the language of Milton and Shakespeare
as spoke without vulgarity (short of "blood hell"), each word
clearly enunciated in the king's English.

   Since critics generally agree that the filmed version sticks
mighty close to the book, one can but wonder not that the novel
was just a best-seller but that over 100 million copies were
snapped up in a work translated into 47 languages--given the
movie's lack of stick-togetherness.  The title character, an
eleven-year-old played winningly by the preppy Daniel Radcliffe
who comes across as bright but not snobbish in the slightest, has
had a terrible childhood.  Both his parents were murdered by an
evil wizard and he is taken in reluctantly by an aunt and uncle
who treat him like a Cinderella while doting on their natural, bratty
son.  They do everything in their power to prevent him from
entering the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardly,
doubtless envious because they are themselves wholly ordinary
without a smidgen of magic charm.  Harry enters a train on a
mysterious platform 9-3/4 by going straight through a wall at the
station, where he enters a parallel universe of goblins, witches,
long-haired professors and snappy matrons where he meets the
adorable and well-spoken Hermione Granger (Emma Watson)
and Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint)--escorted and mentored from
time to time by the bearish and devoted Hagrid (Robbie
Coltrane).  

   The principal issue, emerging late in the narrative, is a
Sorcerer's Stone which is in danger of being stolen by an evil and
yet unseen Voldemort, a kind of undead horror who is leeching
off the body of one of the professors. When the kids are not
sitting in their classes being tutored in the use of magic brooms
and wands, they are engaged in sporting matches such as a
dangerous version of flying dodge ball or playing chess with
pieces larger than they are, moving them simply by issuing
commands.  In this exciting school, the inhabitants of paintings
move about at will, flags change colors and designs, and nary a
kid would be tempted to cut clashes, because even a smoke in
the john would pale in excitement when contrasted with their
required daily activities.

   From time to time Chris Columbus does his best to scare the
kids in the audience, principally by refusing to allow a sleeping
three-headed, monstrous-sized dog to lie.  Episode builds upon
episode though without much congruity, so that what emerges is 
a spectacular piece of work using superb actors spouting clever
bon mots but little sense of a clear narrative.  All in all, any parent
who deprives his or her 8 or 10 or 12 year old of this movie
should probably be indicted for child abuse, but were someone
like Steven Spielberg called in to remedy the failure in
coherence, this could have been something better.

Rated PG.  Running time: 152 minutes.  (C) 2001 by
Harvey Karten, [email-masked]

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