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"Harry Potter
and the Sorcerer’s Stone"
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By Mira Harber
If you
haven’t read any of the Harry Potter books, don’t worry - Harry Potter
and the Sorcerer’s Stone is slavishly faithful to the book. The basic story
is a classic, and the first, in a planned series of seven books by British
author J. K. Rowling. Harry Potter is an orphaned, young boy living with
mean, dreadful relatives. On Harry’s 11th birthday his life changes drastically
when an amazing new world opens up to him. After being inundated with a
mountain of mail, Harry receives an invitation to attend Hogwarts, a kind
of magical Oxford for witches and wizards to be. Harry, you see,
is destined to become a great wizard, and is already famous in the wizarding
world because of the miraculous way he cheated death at the hands of a
powerful dark wizard.
The film
deals with his first year at Hogwarts. The sets are positively, well ‘magical’.
The school is set in a fabulous Gothic looking castle and the mix
of real and computer-generated effects are used to brilliant effect. Staircases
move daily (be careful where you walk!), the characters in paintings move
, they’re not just sitting there like they are in the non-magic, Muggles,
world.
The casting
in this film is brilliant - if you’ve read the book(s) you’ll know what
I mean, and if not, you’ll feel like you already know the characters -
they are absolutely spot-on. Bespectacled Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) is befriended
by the feisty red-headed Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint), and a know-it-all
smarty pants young girl Hermione Granger (Emma Watson). Together these
three become embroiled in a variety of suitably scary (but not totally
terrifying) escapades. The adults in this movie are a who’s-who of British
actors; Richard Harris plays Headmaster Dumbledore with suitable gravitas,
but still has a twinkle in his eyes. Maggie Smith (Prime of Miss Jean Brodie)
is the Transfiguring Professor McGonagall. Robbie Coltrane is pitch-perfect
as the loose-lipped giant Hagrid and Alan Rickman (best bad guy in Die
Hard & Robin-Hood ) steals the show as Professor Snapes who sports
a fabulous sneer as we wonder just who’s side he is really on.
Don’t
get me wrong, I by no means thought that the movie was perfect. ‘Too many
notes’, too much info - it’s not necessary to put every single detail from
the book into the movie, it’s ok to leave some things out. I know that
some children view the book and movie as an almost religious experience,
but sometimes less is more. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone seemed
more like an opportunity to introduce the main characters and compared
to the later books the plot was a little thin. This movie serves as a 2+1/2
hour introduction to the world’s largest ever children’s franchise. I also
felt, and here I will probably be lone voice in the wind, that the movie
somehow lacked ‘heart’ - everything looked perfect, but somehow the soul
of the book was missing. How you define soul is individual to each of us,
but I know it when it’s missing. That said..
anything that uses special
effects to serve the story, not be used instead of a story is a refreshing
change. Children’s imaginations are fired up by Harry Potter’s world. Harry
Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is destined to become, if it is not already,
a children’s classic in the tradition of Wizard of Oz. HP and
the Sorcerer’s Stone might not be perfect, but it certainly leaves the
audience waiting impatiently for next installment in the series HP &
The Chamber of Secrets. Stay tuned. |
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