Deserves an Oscar for Production Design

Rating: Null/10 (21 November 2001)

Ahh, so THIS is what everyone was talking about, this Harry Potter chap and his movie. I'll keep it short and sweet since I went to the 9:45 showing and came out at 12:30, thus am sleepy and still recovering.
Daniel Radcliffe may be the nominal star of the movie, and a very appealing and talented kid he is, but make no mistake, the real stars of Harry Potter are the production design and the special effects. Therein lies the problem: the effects and design are so magnificently, elaborately overwhelming and omnipresent that they almost shove the story and characters off the screen (which I haven't read in original novel form, although I probably should). They pop and slither all over the screen, saying "look at me!" Now, the sets and design are fabulous--someone deserves an Academy award for creating such an awesomely detailed (to quote Kael) fantasy world. But the CGI effects, which took a dozen or more studios and probably 80% of the end credits, are the standard Hollywood-type eye candy IMO. Often clever, but too damn much of it, and usually pretty fake looking. In fantasy, I prefer *not* seeing all the snazzy and expensive effects stuck right in my face, one after the other, as if they don't trust me to get the hint on my own. But this IS a big budget movie we're talking about here...gotta spend that money somehow. Thank Goodness they didn't add dumb sound effects a'la Disney.
There IS a story in here, though, and people. Everyone does as well as they can with their roles...Dan Radcliffe is definitely a spot-on lookalike of the illustrated Harry Potter on millions of book covers worldwide, and the kid can act pretty well too, although we get way too many reaction shots of him looking awestruck and flashing that Mary Lou Retton grin of his :-D. Rupert Grint is probably the bigger discovery, though; he's got a ton of appeal and great comic timing, looking and acting like a very young John Lennon. Emma Watson is an incredibly adorable, pretty girl who will no doubt have a bright future in movies ahead of her if she can learn to stop bobbing her head with each word. Tom Felton puts in a delightfully sneery turn as a preadolescent cross between Alex Winter and Rutger Hauer. As for the adult actors, they're great thespians in the British stage tradition, but I mistook a lot of them for other actors: Alan Rickman fooled me into thinking he was a magically de-aged David Warner, and I thought I saw Madge Ryan as the broom-riding coach. As for Johns Hurt and Cleese and Richard Harris, I missed them totally! Wow. The big bearded fellow and those absurdly nasty Potter relatives are also memorable.
Ah, but the story...intriguing. Entertaining. Occasionally exciting. But took SO long to get going. I realize that you have to establish this whole other world and all, but could we condense it a bit? Too many sidetracks into things (read the Quiggleball-or-whatever-it-was-called match) that looked cool but didn't advance the story at all. A bit sluggish in spots.
Final word: a very entertaining 2 1/2 hours, and a good advertisement for the Harry Potter books and for the effects studios. Not deep, not thought provoking, certainly not a masterpiece, but fun, pretty to look at, and a hell of a lot better overall than Disney's junk. And no product placements either!