Hogwarts and Quidditch achieve magical form

Rating: Null/10 (25 November 2001)

As a guy in his fifties who has never read a word of the Potter books, I felt that I needed an excuse to see this children's film, so  together with five other adults  I accompanied the nine year old son of a friend to a Sunday morning showing in north London on the opening weekend. It was a really fun atmosphere with lots of kids dressed up in pointed hats and coloured cloaks and they cheered when the movie started and applauded at the end.
British one-time primary school teacher Joanne Rowling has now sold some 120 million copies of the first four novels in her planned seven-part saga and apparently managed to ensure that the screen version of her first story stays really close to the book. Although the funding and the director - Chris Columbus of `Home Alone'  are inevitably American, it was shot at classic locations in England and the cast is a wonderful roll call of British character actors and youthful newcomers. Twelve year old Daniel Radcliffe is simply perfect as Harry and the casting is consistently clever from 71 year old Richard Harris as the headmaster Dumbledore to Maggie Smith as Jean Brodie's alter ego

Like Superman, Batman and Luke Skywalker, Harry is an orphan with exceptional powers, but his training ground  the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry  is like no other and given magical form through some brilliant special effects, not least in the furious flying game of Quidditch. The pacing of the movie might have been better but, as a mere `muggle' (someone without special powers), I guess I'm in no position to complain and the kids are going to love all two and a half hours.
Footnote: A couple of days after seeing the film, I caught a train from Platform 9B at London's Kings Cross station and I was delighted to find the platform decked out with Harry Potter references: signs announcing `Hogwarts Express 9 ¾' and warnings such as `All owls must be caged'.