Wizards of Hogwarts

Rating: 7/10 (16 July 2013)

"The New Wizard of Oz' of its time. A complete triumph" -Richard Roeper
I have to admit I'm not a fan of Harry Potter films. I haven't read any of the books either and I tend to avoid films that cause a huge fan phenomenon. My friend was telling me I have been too critical towards Harry Potter and I should give it a new try and watch it again. So that's what I did.
I find the atmosphere in the movie from the very beginning to the end is the best thing in entire movie. Some scenes indeed contain the same kind of magical feeling and same kind visual details as Victor Fleming's Wizard of Oz. Also the music fits into the movie very well.
The first 1/3 of the movie, where Harry Potter prepares his journey to Hogwarts, is very amusing to watch. The very detailed world and its unique, interesting characters owes very much to Wizard of Oz without a doubt. The amount of small details, like moving paintings and newspaper pictures are a joy for an eye.
But then there are the downsides of the movie. The runtime of 152 minutes is just way too long. On the half way the movie made me to yawn and hope for something to happen. Also second downside is the way how all students and teachers, excluding the main characters of course, in the school feel totally unimportant. They are less alive than the moving paintings on the walls. The final and the biggest downside of the film is it's plot full of holes. It seems that teachers in the school got no interest to find out anything what what going on the school. When the killer troll breaks into the school, teachers are unable to do anything about it. Afterwards life continues like nothing ever happened. Nobody cares to wonder where did the troll come from. The same happens with unicorn scene too. It seems the teachers in "the most secured school in the world" wish that someone would get hurt.
I guess things are more explained in the book and the book covers up the main plot holes that remain in the movie but it is still not an excuse to forgive them.
Overall I find the creation of the magical world and the atmosphere are the greatest things that save the movie. I can understand the phenomenon this movie has caused in the world and I can understand calling this film as new Wizard of Oz although I do not agree with that by myself.
Although this movie is not something that would touch me into the heart, it was still a pleasant movie to watch and I managed to the ending credits with a happy, good feeling.