Movie magic?

Rating: 7/10 (21 January 2010)

I was shown this film today without having ever read the novel for comparison of impressions. Yes, I am the one who has never read the novel. That said, I came away from the film adaptation impressed. Once one knows this is a film version of a popular book signs of it are obvious, but this is by no means necessarily a flaw. As befits the length of Harry Potter books this film is long, and that means it has the opportunity to luxuriate in introducing characters and situations while slowing building the final elements of danger into the plot. One of its greatest strengths is the detailed vast, and appealing parallel fantasy world that it creates for its characters. This comes alive both in a the writing and in the visually wonderful film-making, which shows a big budget wisely spent. There are countless brief offhand references to parts of the Wizard world which bespeak an authentically well-developed universe.
The length, and presumably, the desire to adapt as many elements as possible contribute to a certain meandering quality, which however does not detract. I could forget about expecting the film to end and enjoy learning about an imagined sport or system of spell-casting in a nicely-imagined universe. This is a film that clearly has a good amount of reverence for itself, but unlike most self-reverent things it has ample room for humor and there are a good number of funny scenes and lines. Still, the sententious manner in which certain names are intoned or the rise of the theme music whenever a set-piece that many viewers already know will be important shows up occasionally grates. While the world itself seems very detailed through the roundabout way we learn about it, sometimes this leads to details about the important characters being slightly unclear to the non-reader when they come into play.
There's not too much moral depth here either (funnily, it's the evil villain who declares that "there is no good or evil"), as we're clearly supposed to know immediately who to like who not to like. This is turned over on us with a twist at the end, but still a little more humanity for the characters destined to be evil would have been nice.
There is a great cast here of talented British character actors here whom I won't name, but they all do excellently and it's great to see them all. The child actors are wooden once in a blue moon but by and large carry the film surprisingly well and are commendably well-picked.
The story and setting here are a great fantasy-fulfillment tale, and the movie is lots of fun on many counts. I can't say whether as an adaptation it was successful but as a film it was very entertaining.