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Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Grade: B+

Verdict: Even a Muggle director can't spoil the book's magic.

Details: Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Richard Harris, Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman and Robbie Coltrane. Directed by Chris Columbus. Rated PG for scenes that could frighten young children. Two hours, 30 minutes.

Rate it: Write your own review

Review: Everyone can relax. It's just fine.

“Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone,” the most anticipated and hyped movie of the century (think about it . . .), has its shortcomings. But on the whole, it's a very pleasing picture that should appeal to fans and non-fans alike.

As almost everyone knows, Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) is the boy-wizard hero of J.K. Rowling's brilliant and phenomenally successful series of fantasy books. Harry loses his parents as an infant, is raised by his Muggle (non-magical folk) relatives and has no idea of his heritage until he turns 11. Then he's packed off to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where he makes new friends, learns new things and discovers that he's famous for having survived an attack on his life. But he may not be out of danger yet.

Expertly cast and extravagantly well-designed, “Harry Potter” the movie looks much like you'd expect “Harry Potter” the book to look. There's huge and hairy Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane), just like in the book. Snaky Professor Snape (Alan Rickman), just like in the book. The very correct Professor McGonagall (Maggie Smith), just like in the book. Harry's pals, know-it-all Hermione (Emma Watson) and goofy Ron (Rupert Grint) are there, as is the wise and benevolent Professor Dumbledore (Richard Harris). There's even Scabbers the Rat, the Nimbus 2000 broomstick and Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, just like in the book. (Parental warning: There's even some scary stuff, just like in the book.)

The movie reminds us how very good Rowling's story is. We relish anew her fascinating roster of characters, her facility with fantasy worlds. It may turn out that those who haven't read the books will enjoy the movie more than its legions of fans. After all, they don't know what happens next.

For those who know Every Single Thing that happens next (right down to the flavor of the Every Flavor Bean that Dumbledore swallows), there are changes and shortcuts, but nothing too dastardly. To include everything would make an already long picture (2+ hours) even longer.

The changes aren't the movie's problem. In fact, director Chris Columbus has fulfilled his pledge to be faithful to the book. So faithful, alas, that the movie can be thuddingly literal-minded. Columbus is a pedestrian director at best (“Mrs. Doubtfire,” “Bicentennial Man”). He doesn't get in the way, but he doesn't add much either. The movie needs to be more nimble, more whimsical, more, well, spellbinding. Columbus gets the look, and he gets the adventure story. But he doesn't really get “Harry Potter.” The truth is — and this probably should be whispered — this movie was directed by a Muggle.

But a well-meaning Muggle. And sometimes he gives us scenes that are better than in the book. Take John Hurt as the proprietor of a wand shop in Diagon Alley, where Hogwarts students do their back-to-school shopping. It's a charming sequence as written, but Hurt takes the movie to another level. He knows the sound of fantasy, and he gives us a terrific sendoff to Hogwarts itself, where the staircases move on a whim and the Sorting Hat assigns first-year students to one of four houses and the sport of choice is Quidditch (sort of pony-club polo on flying broomsticks).

We expect perfection from the A-list cast of British actors that Columbus has assembled--John Cleese, Maggie Smith and Julie Walters--in addition to those already mentioned. And we get it. But there were qualms about the novice child actors. Not to worry. Watson and Grint are scene-stealers. In fact, they sometimes overshadow Harry himself. Radcliffe is a dead ringer for the book-cover Harry, but he's dreamier, quieter onscreen. He's good enough, but his character lacks the myriad feelings we got from Rowling's version--baffled, astonished, devilish, brave and sometimes just plain wowed by all that's going on around him.

"The wand chooses the wizard," Hurt tells a wide-eyed Harry in his Diagon Alley shop. In the case of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," the wizard chose the wand, so to speak. Columbus wanted to make this movie more than Rowling wanted him to make it. He gets the job done--sometimes magnificently--but you have to wonder what amazements a different wizard might have wrought.

— Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

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