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"Harry Potter"

I suppose it was rather inevitable that there would be a Harry Potter film. Despite director Chris Columbus' dubious history, I decided not to dwell and the fact that he brought us the shudderingly awful Bicentennial Man and Nine Months and the, in my opinion, highly dubious Home Alone and Mrs Doubtfire, and chose instead to remember the fact that he is the man who penned Gremlins.

The plot follows the books, religiously, and when I use that word I mean it in an almost "cult-like" fashion. Columbus was so eager to stick to the book that he seems to put the whole damn thing on a untouchable pedestal, refusing to cut even the most irrelevant of scenes. Now the books are good, but they aren't that good. I never thought I would see the day when I criticised a film for being too slavish to a novel, but if ever there was one, this was it. It is way too long at two-and-a-half hours. I could hear children all about me getting restless.

Just in case there is a person alive still unfamiliar with the plot, it is the tale of Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), our hero, who survives an attack of black magic as a child in which his parents are killed by evil wizard Voldemort, and is left orphaned yet with a fetching lightning-shaped scar on his forehead. He then lives a life of drudgery for 11 years at the hands of his horrid Aunt and Uncle Dursley (Fiona Shaw and Richard Griffiths) and obnoxious cousin Dudley (Harry Melling), before discovering that he is, in fact, a wizard and being whisked away for a series of high jinks at Hogwarts School for Witches and Wizards. While at the school, of course, he makes jolly good friends with a couple of good eggs Hermione Granger (Emma Watson) and Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint), while making an enemy of rotter Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton), and together they muddle along trying to thwart Voldemort a second time.

So, was the magic there? Well, the cast most certainly was. Robbie Coltrane, Richard Harris, Maggie Smith, Zoe Wanamaker and Maggie Smith, to name but a few, all put in an appearance and it is these old hands who really are the best aspect of the film. Coltrane is perfectly suited to the gigantic-yet-soft-hearted school groundskeeper Hagrid and the others on fine form as the teaching collective, with Richard Harris, in particular, seeming straight out of the book as Albus Dumbledore. Alan Rickman deserves a particularly special mention as he is, yet again, tragically underused, this time as poisons master, Snape and David Bradley was simply marvellous as the creepy caretaker, Filch.

But this film had a lot of problems. Firstly and perhaps most surprisingly for an American-funded and expensive film, it had all the feel of a Children's Film Foundation offering from the Seventies. Some of the actors, such as Maggie Smith and Leslie Phillips (who plays the voice of the sorting hat) have been around since then, but many of the others could have been easily swapped with the likes of Margaret Rutherford and Alistair Sim. Ron Weasley, in particular, was very reminiscent of a young Keith Chegwin and, sadly, had about the same measure of acting ability. All the children, in fact, were very, very, very stilted in their dialogue and at times their delivery was almost laughable - certainly, the children in recent release, such as The Others were much more convincing.

Why Columbus felt the need to largely cast children with upper middle-class accents is beyond me. In the books, Hermione, Harry and Ron are all supposed to be from "normal" working/middle class homes and I was particularly offended by the way they turned Hermione into a snobbish individual. In the books she has plenty of know-how, but not in the holier-than-thou way that she is scripted here.

Which brings me to the second problem. All the children seemed to be of public school-ilk, except for the poor old fatboy Neville who, naturally, was from Yorkshire and the jolly sportsman, who was Scottish. The accents as a whole were pretty arbitrary - with Maggie Smith adopting her Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Scots brogue, while Coltrane opted for West Country for no apparent reason. The lack of anything other than caucasian children or teachers save for one bit part was also very noticeable and struck me as particularly odd, considering that Hogwarts isn't supposed to be a public school, but rather one to which anyone with magical talent can go. Sorry, I may be overanalysing this here, but it was noticeable.

This film isn't a total miss, though. The special effects are pretty good throughout, particularly in the dining hall, a pretty fab chess tournament and a game of quidditch - although the latter was way too long. I was rather disappointed to see a continuity glitch in the dining hall, too, in that at the two main banquets at opposite ends of the year, the same food appears to be on the table. Draco is sitting next to a rather fine joint of meat and a bowl of corn on the cob in both and I would have thought they could have switched the food round a bit at the very least. Oh dear, I'm being all negative again and it really wasn't that bad, but it really wasn't that good either.

This film can never really shake the fact that the children aren't particularly talented and there was surprisingly little humour on display. I only heard the audience laugh properly once at the screening I was in, when a troll got a wand up its nose, and the children seemed incredibly downbeat as they left the cinema. When I left Shrek, the air was full of kids talking to their parents about there favourite bits, but after this they just looked, well, tired.

The movie carries a PG rating and it is easy to see why. If I could, I'd give it three and a half stars, but will settle for three.

Thanks for reading.
Firebalt.

Your "review" degenerated into an assault on middle classes. Besides, I always imagined Hermione as having a middle-class accent. Harry's was normal, and Ron's was too. You obviously have no clue as to what Rowling's books are about! :-)

I am the Tarrant wrote:
> RAAAAAAAGGGHHHHHH!!!!!

Although, TV Boy isn't the one we should be attacking,
> surely Firebalt is the bigger fish?

Lol Tarrant and Gaz. As I said in the review, it wasn't intended to be a deconstructive review, but it ended up being one. When I get warmed up writing, you really can't stop me. Flame me at your leisure!

Firebalt.

RAAAAAAAGGGHHHHHH!!!!!

Although, TV Boy isn't the one we should be attacking, surely Firebalt is the bigger fish?

T.V Boy wrote:
> don call me an idiot Stryke thank u

You're an idiot who has no idea about films. Get out of my forum, before I set Tarrantman on you.

don call me an idiot Stryke thank u

i see wat u mean

T.V Boy wrote:
> it was so unrealistic when they were playing quiddich wasnt it!!!!

Yeah, it was. In real life, Quidditch is nothing like that.... idiot.

wasn't that kind of the point?

If you're talking about effects, I thought they were quite good.

it was so unrealistic when they were playing quiddich wasnt it!!!!

Dark? No it wasn't, well maybe that bit were Dumbledore stole all the street lights.

Harry under acted, Hermione over acted and Ron was just right! Much like the three bears!

But you're right, none of them were terrible.