(7) A truly enjoyable fantasy film

Rating: 7/10 (30 December 2001)

Somehow, I had missed joining in on the phenomenon that was HARRY POTTER. I had not read any of the books and missed most of the hype preceding the film. In fact, I hadn't even seen the trailer. So it was with the healthy anticipation that I generally have for the movies I choose to see that I bought my ticket and entered the cinema where I would be transported into a world that returned me to the fantasies of my childhood. I have since read the books and come to understand some of the gripes of the many purists who have lamented some of the changes in the film. But despite some of these (fully justified) complaints, this film will see me return for several further viewings.
HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE captured my imagination from the first shots of Dumbledore as he douses the lights in Privet Drive until the camera pulls back in the final shots of the Hogwart Express taking the young wizards- and witches-in-training back for their holiday after a busy term at Hogwarts. The film takes great care in creating the magical world to which Harry travels and the characters that inhabit that these fantastic places are beautifully brought to life by a set of actors who serve this film in no uncertain terms.
Of the child actors, Rupert Grint fares the best as the irrepressible Ron Weasly. His work in the film perfectly balances the delightfully waspish Emma Watson as Hermione Granger and the delicate work of Daniel Radcliffe as the title character. Some have criticised Radcliffe's work as a trifle bland: however, I feel this may have been a conscious choice on the part of the director Chris Columbus in the creation of a central everyman character with whom audiences can identify and onto whom they may graft their own personalities, dreams, wishes and fantasies. The other youthful characters' roles are greatly reduced from the book, most lamentably Neville Longbottom, whose arc in the book was truly touching, and Draco Malfoy, who does little more here than establish himself as a nemesis to the Potter/Granger/Weasly trio. The other regretted loss is Hermione's, robbing her of her climactic moment in the challenges that face the friends as they decode a series of charms in their quest for the sorcerer's stone. The adult cast is uniformly brilliant, with a Gandalfian Richard Harris as Albus Dumbledore, a suitably strict Minerva McGonagall in Maggie Smith and a perfectly slimy Alan Rickman as Professor Snape. Robbie Coltrane is outstanding as Rubeus Hagrid.
The film and my subsequent reading of the books have turned me into a HARRY POTTER fan. Like everyone else, I anticipate the fifth book impatiently and can't wait for the next film. I can't help wondering however how major the sacrifices in the subsequent films will be. Certainly, the third and fourth books should not be crammed into the comparatively miniscule two and a half hours that was able to serve the first film extremely well. All I hope for with each subsequent film is a journey into the magical world that captured me so brilliantly in what is the finest fantasy film I have seen in many years.