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Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is less an intrepid cinematic undertaking than it is a painstaking attempt not to vex the book's millions of fans.
Few films have ever been as true to their origin: Nearly every dragon, goblin and troll who graces J.K. Rowling's insanely popular novel flaps, crawls or stomps its way across the big screen version, too. From the pig tail on the rear of Harry's porcine cousin to Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans, Rowling's whimsical touches have survived the transition intact.
By the time Harry crosses the lake to Hogwarts, even the most ardent Potterphiles will forget they had ever imagined the book's characters looking any other way.
That, combined with the generally splendid special effects, is all that should be necessary to transfigure the movie into a magical success. While the film may have cost an estimated $150 million, the hordes of Muggles and their offspring already queuing up to see it should make Harry Potter one of the most profitable movie franchises ever.
Yet the price that director Chris Columbus and screenwriter Steve Kloves paid for their punctilious adherence to Rowling's Holy Writ is a movie almost as bulky as cake-swilling Dudley: It tilts the hourglass at 2 hours, 23 minutes.
Because Columbus and Kloves strove to squeeze in nearly all the characters and scenes from the book -- and since three times the duration would be required to do it properly -- the result is a film that seems as hurried as that time-dilation spell that Hermione tests out a few years later. We're teased with glimpses of Harry testing his wand, schoolboys cooing over the Nimbus 2000 and Nearly Headless Nick at the dinner table, but we never learn how those episodes fit into Harry's life.
Parents shouldn't, however, worry about the length. The film is visually enticing enough that tots won't become fidgety or -- with the exception of the penultimate scene where Harry tussles with the evil Voldemort -- talk aloud too much. (Be prepared for some intermittent clapping and cheers, though.)
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone begins with a dark glimpse into Harry's sad life with his aunt, uncle and cousin Dudley on Privet Drive in suburban England. As Rowlings put it: "Perhaps it had something to do with living in a dark cupboard, but Harry had always been small and skinny for his age.... Harry had a thin face, knobbly knees, black hair and bright green eyes. He wore round glasses held together with a lot of Scotch tape because of all the times Dudley had punched him on the nose."
Luckily for both us and Harry, with the help of Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane), he escapes the world of Muggledom and is magically transported to the Hogwarts school for wizards. En route he meets Hermione Granger (Emma Watson) and Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint), who become his best friends and co-conspirators.
For Harry soon finds out that hidden in the Hogwarts castle, a massive building with shifting staircases, ghosts and talking paintings, is a magical artifact called the sorcerer's stone. It's being guarded by a three-headed brute whelped from Cerberus, and Voldemort -- a wraithlike figure who murdered Harry's parents -- believes the stone will bring his powers back.
The casting is excellent. It's now difficult to imagine the snide Draco Malfoy looking like anything but a bleached-blond Boris Karloff. Albus Dumbledore (Richard Harris) and Professor McGonagall (Maggie Smith) are equally well cast.
Adults who love the Harry Potter novels -- which are hardly loved by only children -- might find the movie rendition occasionally juvenile. Hagrid's slips are a bit too contrived, and the Quidditch match is as forgettable as that pod race in Star Wars: Episode I.
Movies should be rated by how much the experience is worth. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is worth $15 if you're a fan of the series, and half that otherwise.
