Capt. Mondo's World o' Mondo-ness

Harry Potter Movie Review
While I'm traveling north by various modes of public transit in order to see Mother at the Newmarket hospital, I figure I might as well jot down my impressions of the Harry Potter movie in order to pass the time (and to keep my mind off things).

I actually saw the movie twice this past weekend. First on Saturday for an early matinee, and again on Sunday with Bill. I had previously arranged to see it with him, but went to the Saturday show when I didn't hear from him. Feeling guilty when he did call late Saturday afternoon, I agreed to see a Sunday show with him.

I was initially worried when I heard that the movie had been directed by the guy who did Home Alone, and wondered whether HP might be overtly slapstick. I'm glad to report that the movie in fact sets the right tone, very much in keeping with the books. In fact, the directing effort was very pedestrian -- there's no surprises in store for anybody who has read the books. This relatively conservative direction is probably the best the director could do, given that the legions of HP fans would accept anything less.

On exiting the theatre, Bill mentioned that he had always thought the first book of the series the weakest story. Initially, I disagreed, though his point is more that Rowling has to lay so much ground-work with the characters that there doesn't seem to be much room for the plot. This element did come through in the movie, as it seemed to consists if a series of vignettes strung together.

The casting choices were excellent. The child actors in particular do a marvelous job. Alan Rickman is as good as Professor Snape as I expected him to be, and I was pleasantly surprised to see Robbie Coltrane effectively playing the gentle giant Hagrid. I also recognized Fiona Shaw as the actress playing Petunia Dursley (she also played Irma Prunesquallor in Gormenghast). My only qualm here had to do with the makeup jobs for the likes of Dumbledore and McGonagall, in that they didn't seem to age at all between the time of delivering the young orphan Harry to the Dursleys, and when he arrived almost a dozen years later at Hogwarts.

Another minor criticism was that some of the CGI work seemed sloppy. Neville's fall from his broom and the flying characteristics of the owls, for example, lacked polish, and hence verisimilitude. I suspect this may have been something of a rush job. The other thing that bugged me was the musical score by John Williams. Bill confirmed my suspicion that the main Harry Potter Theme is a minor hack to one of the main themes from Star Wars – and what isn’t recycled is decidedly lackluster. However, on the whole this is nit-picky stuff -- the movie is a lot of fun, and a good story well told.