Another tedious Potter movie from Warner Bros.' factory

Rating: Null/10 (8 June 2004)

Don't believe the hype-- while director Alfonso Cuaron may have provided a slightly more gothic feel to this third Harry Potter franchise Happy Meal, the guiding spirit here is still that of Warner Brothers' executive suite (and promotions department), and he is no more able to transcend the existing problems with these adaptations than a Lee Tamahori or a Michael Apted has been able to impress the stamp of his own personality upon the James Bond franchise.
Once again, we have an adaptation which races from plot point to plot point to make sure those following along page by page are not disappointed, but never catches enough breath to give any character or actor the time to actually win the audience over. The colorless Daniel Radcliffe remains as uninteresting as the average 13-year-old (it's as if the Bond series had begun with George Lazenby), and his friends are only slightly better. Fine character actors demonstrate the value of their training, but is there anyone among us who could not imitate Alan Rickman playing Snape nearly as well as the man himself plays it, when he's given nothing with which to surprise us? Likewise, the movie is full of details which seem as if they could be charming, but somehow never are-- so the paintings can move (an effect achieved rather cheaply by filming real characters and then overlaying a standard Photoshop "Canvas" filter which doesn't even really look like oil painting), but do they ever do anything interesting? (Yes, once, when a giraffe walks through half a dozen paintings at the same time. But only that once.) A sequence in which the same characters relive a day from another angle seems painfully flat and predictable when considered against the ingenious playing with time in movies such as Run Lola Run.
Audiences have convinced themselves they love these movies-- you have only to read the bulk of the reviews here-- but it is hard to believe they will be long remembered, unlike the books which, however prefab some of their borrowings from Tolkien, Roald Dahl and Star Wars may be, nevertheless have real wit and charm as well as being viciously compelling pageturners. Somehow the same plot on screen proves leadenly predictable on film. Perhaps someday someone will figure out why, and make a Harry Potter movie as good as a Harry Potter book.