Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone: A Review
You have to have a heart of stone - or be a Dursley - to not like Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.
I say this not from the perspective of a child, nor the parent of a child, nor even a voracious reader of the J.K. Rowling novels about the boy with glasses and that lightning-shaped star. Indeed, I only have the first of the five books and that, dear readers, only because my former neighbor and computer troubleshooter gave it to me before he moved to South Carolina. My taste in movies rarely goes into the realm of "family fare," even though some of my favorite films (E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the Star Wars series, among others) are geared for young and old alike.
I must also admit that I only started reading Harry Potter when I had just about gone through most of my Tom Clancy novels, Star Wars tomes, and history books. I was not sure if I would like it as much as I do, say, Tolkien'sThe Lord of the Rings. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Ms. Rowling's tale is appealing not only to the young but to the young-at-heart.
The 2001 film version, adapted by Steve Kloves and directed by Chris (Gremlins) Columbus, is an above-average family film. While warm and whimsical in places, Rowling's tale is not exactly all syrupy and bright, either. For the story of Harry Potter, wizard in training, is also a story which deals with fate, losses, fear, courage, friendship, and the struggle between the forces of light and darkness.
Sorcerer's Stone follows the plot of its source novel faithfully (some have said "too faithfully"): an orphaned Harry Potter is left to be cared by his maternal aunt Petunia and her husband Vernon, the terrible Dursleys, after his parents' tragic demise at the hands of Lord Voldemort, a dark and deadly wizard. For most of his 12 years, Harry lives in a cupboard under the stairs. When strange things start happening on his cousin Dudley's birthday outing and owls start flooding the house on Privet Drive with letters from Hogwart's School of Wizardry, the Dursleys try to hide Harry in a remote shack out in the boonies. But Harry's destiny is not to be denied, and he is whisked away by Hogwart's trusted groundskeeper Hagrid.
Kloves and Columbus recreate Rowling's novel almost perfectly, catching all the nuances and details just right. Though this makes for a running time of 152 minutes, Sorcerer's Stone never drags or brings on snores...at least not for older kids and young-hearted adults. Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grant and Emma Watson are excellent in their roles as Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger; their camaraderie and pluck is convincing, and the supporting cast, which includes John Cleese, Robbie Coltrane, Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith, and the late Richard Harris as Headmaster Albus Dumbledore, is an exciting and talented ensemble. Adding his usual musical magic to Harry's adventures is none other than composer/conductor John Williams, whose soaring themes and gentle underscores give extra excitement to the Quidditch match and dark menace to those dark passages within the walls of Hogwarts.
The Special Widescreen Edition DVD consists of one disc that contains the film itself (with English and Spanish audio tracks, plus subtitles in both languages) and a few extra features, plus a second disc with DVD-ROM features, games, puzzles, interviews, and links to the Web.
The sound and picture are excellent, and the movie itself seems destined to be a family classic along the lines of The Wizard of Oz and the great films of Walt Disney.
I say this not from the perspective of a child, nor the parent of a child, nor even a voracious reader of the J.K. Rowling novels about the boy with glasses and that lightning-shaped star. Indeed, I only have the first of the five books and that, dear readers, only because my former neighbor and computer troubleshooter gave it to me before he moved to South Carolina. My taste in movies rarely goes into the realm of "family fare," even though some of my favorite films (E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the Star Wars series, among others) are geared for young and old alike.
I must also admit that I only started reading Harry Potter when I had just about gone through most of my Tom Clancy novels, Star Wars tomes, and history books. I was not sure if I would like it as much as I do, say, Tolkien'sThe Lord of the Rings. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Ms. Rowling's tale is appealing not only to the young but to the young-at-heart.
The 2001 film version, adapted by Steve Kloves and directed by Chris (Gremlins) Columbus, is an above-average family film. While warm and whimsical in places, Rowling's tale is not exactly all syrupy and bright, either. For the story of Harry Potter, wizard in training, is also a story which deals with fate, losses, fear, courage, friendship, and the struggle between the forces of light and darkness.
Sorcerer's Stone follows the plot of its source novel faithfully (some have said "too faithfully"): an orphaned Harry Potter is left to be cared by his maternal aunt Petunia and her husband Vernon, the terrible Dursleys, after his parents' tragic demise at the hands of Lord Voldemort, a dark and deadly wizard. For most of his 12 years, Harry lives in a cupboard under the stairs. When strange things start happening on his cousin Dudley's birthday outing and owls start flooding the house on Privet Drive with letters from Hogwart's School of Wizardry, the Dursleys try to hide Harry in a remote shack out in the boonies. But Harry's destiny is not to be denied, and he is whisked away by Hogwart's trusted groundskeeper Hagrid.
Kloves and Columbus recreate Rowling's novel almost perfectly, catching all the nuances and details just right. Though this makes for a running time of 152 minutes, Sorcerer's Stone never drags or brings on snores...at least not for older kids and young-hearted adults. Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grant and Emma Watson are excellent in their roles as Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger; their camaraderie and pluck is convincing, and the supporting cast, which includes John Cleese, Robbie Coltrane, Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith, and the late Richard Harris as Headmaster Albus Dumbledore, is an exciting and talented ensemble. Adding his usual musical magic to Harry's adventures is none other than composer/conductor John Williams, whose soaring themes and gentle underscores give extra excitement to the Quidditch match and dark menace to those dark passages within the walls of Hogwarts.
The Special Widescreen Edition DVD consists of one disc that contains the film itself (with English and Spanish audio tracks, plus subtitles in both languages) and a few extra features, plus a second disc with DVD-ROM features, games, puzzles, interviews, and links to the Web.
The sound and picture are excellent, and the movie itself seems destined to be a family classic along the lines of The Wizard of Oz and the great films of Walt Disney.
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