All through this coming week, my wife and I are going to be watching through the Harry Potter movies, because something about them always feels like they are Christmas Movies. Maybe because most of the movies have a Christmas scene, and maybe that is a holdover from having Cable when ABC Family would have a Harry Potter Marathon every December. My reactions to this are both around the movie itself and how the movie adapted the book. Speaking of, I would like to take a moment to plug my own books, “The Shadow of the Past” and “And the Sun Burned Red”, which are available on Amazon (links below).
The start with what works about the movie for me. Above everything else, the casting of the movie is spectacular and spot on in every character that I can think of. The young actors fit into their characters well and bring an eagerness to their roles. For me, the particular stand outs are Robbie Coltrane’s Hagrid, John Hurt’s Olivander, and Richard Harris’ Dumbledore. The score of the movie is excellent and combines well with some great cinematography and effects work to bring the audience into the magical world and Daniel Radcliffe conveys the wonder of everything very well. The plot movies along at a nice pace of the movie, revealing important information at logical places without overwhelming with exposition, and there are some fun and tense dramatic moments. Overall, this movie works very well and is a fun and engaging watch for all ages.
In terms of what does not work for me, much of this comes down to it now being 22 years since the movie came out (how?!). First off, the CGI by modern standards is a little comical and clunky, although they do make good use of practical effects to avoid over-relying on that. This dated CGI is perhaps no where more evident than in the Quidditch match, to the point where at moments it almost takes one out of what should be a fun an engaging movie. It is also very obvious, likely from the fact that this movie I am guessing had a MUCH lower budget than some of the later entries, that a number of things are being filmed on a sound stage (particular the scenes in the Dark Forest). Honestly, the charm of the movie, and recognizing that the film is more than 20 years old, mitigates much of these concerns, but my final and bigger issues is that the movie moves forward for much of its run in fits and starts, with scenes that often start with no context and then end, and move onto another scene that starts without context. Some of this is the difficulty of adapting a book to film, but I wonder at times how well anyone who hasn’t read the books would follow especially the first half of the movie.
In terms of how this works as a book adaption, I would say that this movie was overall successful in capturing the book. As I have gotten older, I have increasingly found it hard to argue that any movie should be viewed as the end all and be all adaptation of a book. Instead the movie should be treated as its own separate entity, created by its producers, directors, writers, etc. that happens to be based on a book. The reasons being that book and film are vastly different mediums, so a complete adaptation is nearly impossible (or would be long mini-series instead of a single film), and everyone brings their own reading of the book so this is the reading/interpretation of the creators of the film. That being said, I feel that this movie successfully matches the wonder and mystery of the book and hits the majority of the plot points and events of the book well. This does come at the expense of the depth of character that is present in the book. The Dursley’s are more comical than being the horrible people they are in the book, Snape comes across more as a strict and demanding teacher rather than the terrible teacher and bully he is in the books, and outside the main trio and Hagrid, the nuances of the rest of the students and staff are largely lost, particular the rivalry between Harry and Draco. Again, one could definitely argue that adding more of these things would have disrupted the flow of the movie and/or would be hard to adapt to film effectively. That being said, it results in the some of the events of the movie like Draco spying on Harry and Harry’s suspicion of Snape seemingly coming out of nowhere and are important plot points for later books.
Some random thoughts in no particular order:
– I genuinely don’t think any of the adult characters are miscast and the energy and passion they all bring really brings much of the movie together.
– They only appear in two scenes, but I am glad they abandoned the pointed black hats the students wear after this film, they look so weird.
– Other than setting up a joke for the final film in the series, what was the point of having Seamus keep blowing stuff up. I can’t remember if I found it funny or not when the movie came out, but it is just awkward and weird now.
– Performance comparisons aside (which I will likely touch on when talking about later films), I think that this interpretation of Dumbledore, much older and more wizened, makes more sense for the character and would make the scenes later in the series where he demonstrates his power and skill more impactful.
– Quirrell at the end is too confident and menacing, it somewhat undercuts the menace of the reveal of Voldemort, which is also let down by the somewhat iffy CGI.
– It is fun remembering all the things that the kids in the movie, particular the side characters, would end up doing later in their careers.
Overall, this is a successful and enjoyable movie and a mostly effective adaptation of the book and I am looking forward to continue to watch and review the series. I hope you have enjoyed this review. If you have any comments or thoughts of your own, please share them. And as a final message, here is another plug for my books, it would be awesome if you would buy/rent, read, and review them and share any thoughts you have.
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