Can it get any worse?

Rating: 6/10 (20 December 2002)

Wizarding is not an easy thing to do, that's for sure. And in a way, film-making is a kind of wizardry, as the director conjures images thought and un-thought of. However, it's not enough to delight on a visual level, the feast must also contain a story well enough patched together (especially considering the long Harry Potter books) and at least decent performances from the actors. Hard thing to do, it seems.
I hoped to see something better than "The Sorcerer's Stone", judging that people tend to learn from mistakes. Of course, that was naive from me. The action kind of kept jumping from one scene to another, without really much connection between them (not a great screenplay by Kloves). The biggest hole in plotting would be at the end, when Dumbledore says something...rather weird, if you have not read the book. Something like "No exams will be held", which the normal movie goer while grasp as natural and had it been our world, I'd have agreed. The natural state of things have to be clearly defined, so as to wholly integrate the world you're trying to pick up from the books in its own universe. Besides Columbus' lack of inspiration, I have to underline the fact that the teens were as bad as in the first. I did not like any of them except, maybe, Rupert Grint and I only liked him in some scenes (like the spiders-scene). The only change at Radcliffe was in his voice, definitely not his acting. Felton wasn't great either, but he's decent enough while playing Malfoy's part. It's also somewhat easier, considering his minutes in the film. The "big" actors, on the other hand, are very fine, no complaints against them. Isaacs is good for father Malfoy and Kenneth Branagh portrays Lockhart just perfectly!
What I liked most was Dobby! Though he was not how I imagined him, he was brilliantly animated, and brought with him a bit of fun to the long, sometimes boring portrayal of Harry's second Hogwarts year. Other visual effects? The basilisk was cool enough to satisfy my needs for bloodthirsty creatures. It's really unfortunate that Columbus, a decent guy, couldn't scrap up something better than last time, but I guess it's not only his fault. Working with kids can be quite hard, I imagine and books remain books as movies always try to become...more.