Tuesday 19 July 2011

Harry Potter and The Philosophers Stone


Humble beginnings

Lover: Taken from IMDB
“I was free from any anticipation for this film being not overly impressed by the fantasy genre. This film redeems itself above other sorcery films with its old fashioned English ambiance being greater than arch and portentous fantasy. Unlike other fantasy films the directors face the challenge of a highly critical audience of children who are more familiar with the books that they are & waiting expectantly for their favorite part of the book and would tear the director to ices if he was there in their anger such omissions. Any changes in the film would be seen as desecrating the fantasy world that Rowling created. “

On reading this a second time I realised it was actually a review for the second one, however I’ve kept it because I believe the first part make one good point; that about omissions angering the majority of audiences.

Hater: Taken from IMDB
“OMG Kids Praise This Series, Holy #### Is This Awful. The Plot Is That It is the tale of Harry Potter, an ordinary 11-year-old boy serving as a sort of slave for his aunt and uncle who learns that he is actually a wizard and has been invited to attend the Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry is snatched away from his mundane existence by Hagrid, the grounds keeper for Hogwarts, and quickly thrown into a world completely foreign to both him and the viewer. Famous for an incident that happened at his birth, Harry makes friends easily at his new school. He soon finds, however, that the being a wizard world is far more dangerous for him than he would have imagined, and he quickly learns that not all wizards are ones to be trusted. Now Thats Done The Acting Is Crap (People Might Complain That This Is Their First Movie But If These Kids Were In A Uwe Boll Movie It Would Be Worse Than Any Others. All In All A Crappy Movie Rating: 1/10”

A horrible review that spends the majority of the time giving you the synopsis then slating the child actors and saying the series is awful!? We know the kids are ropey infact the acting from the kids has been up and down the entire series, however whether or not that ruined the film for you is up to you.

What I thought:

Looking back at the first in the series you can see just how far they have come and how drastically the style changed. Chris Columbus hugely kiddie friendly fair is just that, like the book it’s more fun loving and fancy free. Seeing this new ‘wizarding’ world through the innocent eyes of Harry Potter is a delight as the film is chock full of lovely little details; So what if some of the effects are little questionable or our three leads acting largely unconvincing, its good fun.

One thing however that this series has always nailed, partly I suspect to J.K Rowlings excellent writing is the casting of the adult supporting roles. Right from Dumbledore down, played here by Richard Harris all of the actors completely flesh out these characters that will shape the future and indeed the destiny of the “boy who lived”. It is hard to ignore the sometimes terrible acting especially from Radcliffe and Watson both of whom don’t look at any point to have shaken off the face they had when told they got the roles. Rupert Grint is more natural; holding his own with some of the funniest line in the film but even here suffers in the more dramatic moments.

Going back to what I said this does not spoil what is a wonderfully fun joyride for the kids, easing these children slowly into a world that does not shy away from massive adult themes that include torture and murder. This by the way is the fire in my series of Harry Potter reviews to celebrate the ending of the franchise, it will concluded by a little feature about the boy wizard and his legacy.

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"Films are Loved, Films are hated. I'm here to help you decide where you stand..." I also do web work including a good knowledge of HTML, ASP, using the adobe web package and a strong understanding of SEO, Google Analytics.