Faithful and attractive adaption that lacks real spark.

Rating: 7/10 (4 April 2002)

If ever there was proof of that cliche 'it's never as good as your imagination', this movie is it. It looks wonderful, has some great scenes and the casting is very good, but it does not match the charm, atmosphere and cleverness of the book. Ironically, you may very well enjoy it more if you've never read J.K Rowling's world famous novel, as I and some others who've seen it found it hard to get into the film, as we were watching it with half an eye for how accurately it fitted our visions rather than enjoying it purely for itself.
The film's lacks can be summed up by a paradox: it is both too true and not true enough to the book. The film is a bit disjointed, with the changes between scenes not being as smooth as they could be, and I think this is because it is trying to follow the plot of the book as exactly as it could. The problem is that books and films are two different media, and what works in one will not necessarily work in the other. The film does not (and probably cannot, as the books do not have a narrator that the film could use) have the hidden voice of the author to fill in the gaps in the plot and add those little satirical touches that helped make the book so enjoyable for adults as well as children. This means that there are parts of the film that do not have the punch they do in the novel: for example the early scenes dealing with Harry's appalling foster parents are good, but they do not quite convey the wretchedness of Harry's 'normal' life as they do in the book, and despite Alan Rickman's disdainful drawl, Professor Snape is not as nasty as I imagined him. As a result there is not the tension surrounding whether Harry will get kicked out of the school and why it's so important that Snape's house Slytherin doesn't win the trophy. Perhaps this explains why parts of the film seem rather flat.
The other significant problem I had with the film was that Daniel Radcliffe, who plays Harry Potter, does not have the energy and fun that the character does in the novel. He's not bad, and he does look very like I imagined Harry Potter to, but he seems a bit passive. Other than that the acting was pretty spot on - Robbie Coltrane is particularly good as Hagrid and the actors playing the teachers and the other kids all do an excellent job.
The film's strengths are many and far outweigh it's weaknesses: some things are even better than I saw them in my head: Hogwarts looks magnificent in it's Gothic wierdness, the invisibility cloak is indeed very cool, the chess match is brutally satisfying and, most impressively, the Quidditch match is a triumph: full of hurtling broomsticks, violent collisions and flying bodies. It's like a cross between rugby and basketball in mid-air, and it rocks. The story is obviously a very good one and, while it isn't as scary as the book, it's good and dark for a movie aimed at kids as well as adults. I enjoyed it, and might enjoy it more on a second viewing, when it doesn't have the baggage of living up to a modern classic.
RATING 7/10.