Miserable adaptation of a great story

Rating: Null/10 (19 August 2002)

The actors were flawless, and in some cases brilliant. There are no special effects that were underdone, or done poorly. The sets are perfect. One might quibble about the costuming, but that's a minor concern and only in some cases; for the most part everyone is dressed as one might expect. So what's my complaint?
This is obviously the product of a director and writers who did not feel they had a free hand to adapt this story to its medium. Everything that took up more than a few pages in the book seemed to rate at least a mention here, but very often having mentioned them they're dropped without a backward glance. Some events are portrayed that have no real bearing on the story as abridged, taking up footage that could have been used for better development of some of the minor characters. For reasons of space, most of the satire and humor is dropped entirely in favor of the occasional slapstick comic relief, such as the running gag about Seamus blowing himself up in the Charms class.
Where's Dumbledore's wit, his sparkle, and his eccentricity? He's deep and sagacious, which is to say he's a stock wizard with no characteristics that distinguish him from dozens of others, and is completely lacking in the weirdness that made him so charming in the book. Where's Neville Longbottom's character development? He goes from losing his toad to getting paralyzed by Hermione with nothing in between. Rather than being given such short shrift, he should have been dropped from this movie entirely and saved for those moments later on where he'll be indispensable. Why even bother to include Norbert if you're not going to do anything with that subplot? Here it serves the sole purpose of being the cause for detention in the Forbidden Forest, but with all the other illicit doings of Harry & Co. some other pretext for could have been found. Surely they could have at least hinted at other Quidditch matches than the one that was actually portrayed; as it is, it stands alone and has no bearing on anything else that happens. I suppose they had to show it as it becomes very important in the later books, but it would have been better to work it into the plot somehow. These are just examples; I could name many more instances where the adaptation was very poorly done.
But worst of all is there are times when this movie is boring. How Columbus managed *that* with the material at his disposal is pretty amazing. The only reason I can come up with for it is that he felt constrained, either by the author of the book or the fan community, to ensure that certain elements from the book appeared in the movie whether or not they made sense cinematically. He would have served the audience better with more boldness in departing from the book where necessary, instead of adhering to it where it made no sense to do so.