First impressions of the film (following Casssie's analysis

[Catherine Coleman]

OK - saw the film today - adding/commenting on Cassie's very detailed
review, rather than posting one of my own (lazy, I know).
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>It is very hard to judge this movie objectively. As a passionate fan 
>of the books, every detail and every word are ingrained into my 
>memory, and simply seeing them brought to life in a film is such a 
>thrilling feeling that it's hard to look past the initial giddiness 
>to really ascertain whether the movie is a good one or not. My 
>initial opinion: It is a good movie, but not a great one. Scenes and 
>subplots have been cut from the books, resulting in scenes that are 
>unexplained, or plots that seem to go nowhere. The following is a 
>mixture of review and flat-out spoilage. Read ahead at your own risk.

I totally agree with this.  I spent the whole film looking forward to
certain scenes/pieces of dialogue, and therefore spent much of it
feeling let down because what I wanted to happen, didn't.  I think I'll
enjoy it more on a second viewing, because my expectations won't be
quite so high.  I particularly agree with the sketchiness of the plot -
I think that if I were seeing this film without having read the book
first, I would be very confused and frustrated by the lack of detail.
What is also apparent is that the time constraints have meant that many
major characters have the screen time seriously limited if not totally
omitted, which means that many of them come across as very one-
dimensional, and that the relationships aren't developed properly.  

> Harry appears to be speaking English, and so 
>does the snake. When the glass vanishes, Dudley falls into the snake 
>cage, only to have the glass seal up behind him, trapping him inside. 
>Amusing, if non-canonical, moment.

LOON moment (and this review will be full of them) - what purpose did it
serve having the snake's origin being Burma, not Brazil?  I do not
understand why something so trivial should be changed.  Great scene
otherwise though - thought DR interacted very well with the snake, and
it was a good idea to trap Dudley behind the glass.

>From the hut, the film moves on to its first big set piece: Diagon 
>Alley. (a passing mention of the Leaky Cauldron scene -- the moment 
>where Hagrid announces that this is little Harry Potter he has with 
>him and the whole tavern goes dead quiet sent shivers up my spine.) 

I don't know whether I agree with this.  I do think that the Leaky
Cauldron and Diagon Alley were delightfully Dickensian, but the scene in
the Leaky Cauldron was a bit of a let down.  Apart from Quirrel wearing
his turban, I really didn't get the sense of Harry's fame in the
wizarding world.  Rather than having a whole crowd round him, only
Dedalus Diggle and Doris Crockford seemed to speak to him - the others
only afforded him with a momentary silence.  Not what I was expecting,
and it somehow diminished Harry's status in the wizarding world -
especially as his situation at the Dursleys' wasn't really developed
properly on film, and the contrast wasn't drawn as strongly as I would
have liked.

>Diagon Alley, I am happy to say, has a distinctly dark, Dickensian 
>feel. Bats hang from rafters, the Daily Prophet sign swings in the 
>wind, Ollivander's wand shop proclaims that they are fine 
>wandmakers "since 320 BC." The busy, chaotic, dusty street feels just 
>right: when Harry passed a shop around which a bunch of children had 
>gathered to ooh the new Nimbus 2000, Ashley and I bounced in glee.
>

Agree, loved it.  Nothing more to say. 

>The scene in Ollivander's shop is another hero-moment for Harry. 

This was an excellent scene.  Slightly disappointed about lack of
measuring tape and endless trying of wands, but I thought that John Hurt
was superb and really made the most of this cameo.

>The Weasleys! George and 
>Fred toss off their one-liners with flair (Woman, you call yourself 
>our mother?) Ginny looks more like seven years old than ten to me, 
>but H/G shippers will be pleased to know she speaks to Harry. She 
>says, "Good luck." They may not be so pleased by Harry's reaction: he 
>ignores her. We get brief glimpses of Percy in this scene (he's the 
>first through the barrier) and Ashley claims she saw Neville and his 
>grandma, although I missed that. 


My biggest disappointment in the film, here.  I was so excited when
Harry saw the Weasleys and ran through the barrier.  Alas, my favourite
scene in the entire book was omitted - ie. Fred and George helping Harry
onto the train, finding out who he is, teasing Percy about being a
prefect - Mrs Weasley telling them not to bother Harry and ask about
Voldemort.  I have to say, when it cut from Harry's view of the platform
immediately to the train merrily puffing along the track deep in the
countryside, my heart sank, because I knew what had been cut, and I was
very sad about it.


>As reported, Draco's scene with Harry in the robe shop and the "train 
>scene" are cruelly excised. 

I thought this was very effective.  In this scene the whole of the first
year see Harry snub Draco - making his embarrassment more acute than it
would have been on the train.  Tom Felton is too cute though - just
can't look evil enough to save his life.

>The Sorting Ceremony left something to be desired. O

Yes - the whole thing was a mess.  Absolutely ridiculous.  Why on earth
did they have all the first years standing there while Dumbledore gives
his speech about the Forest and the 3rd Floor Corridor, then be sorted,
then give another speech?  Doesn't make sense.  And it is very unclear
if everyone in the hall can here the Sorting Hat's ruminations or not
before it declares the house.  At least Hermione gets her Hogwarts: A
History line in - practically the only time in the film she does say
something canonical.

>Side note: I've heard complaints about Daniel's acting, but I don't 
>see it. Little Dan has the perfect face to be Harry -- transparent as 
>a window pane, showing everything he feels, somehow managing to 
>express both momentary joy and the everpresent knowledge of a wounded 
>and sorrowful past. My personal problem is that, while Daniel is a 
>beautiful little boy, and has lovely eyes, they are a stunning shade 
>of...BLUE. Hello? Ashley and I surmised that we might be seeing an 
>early print without the green CGI'd in.
>
Agree.  I think that he was perfect.  Couldn't fault him.  I don't think
you saw an early print, though - his eyes were blue at the screening we
saw, as well.

>Cut to Potions Class. Snape has an excellent entrance -- the door 
>slams open and he strides in at top speed, swishing black robes 
>behind him. He gives his Potions speech and he and Draco make some 
>meaningful eye contact. His ribbing of Harry is pretty excellent; too 
>bad that's just about all we see of it for the whole film.

Very good speech, but for me, by this point everything was moving too
fast, and there was absolutely no build up in atmosphere to it.  He
rushes in and starts talking - I always imagined him gliding in, looking
round, capturing everyone's attention, and then talking very slowly,
clearly and softly - there was no sense of this.  Hermione was
excellent, trying to answer the questions, but I do wish that Harry got
his "Ask Hermione, she seems to know" line in.

>This is followed by a very interesting scene in the Hogwarts 
>courtyard, in which Harry expressed to Ron his fear that he will not 
>be a good seeker and will "make a fool of myself." Hermione, 
>overhearing, comes bounding over. "Harry, you won't make a fool of 
>yourself. You'll be great - it's in your blood." She leads him over 
>to a glass trophy case, in which is a brass plaque engraved with 
>JAMES POTTER GRYFFINDOR SEEKER 1972.
>
>Seeker???????
>
>I think this proves it is a big waste of time paying a lot of 
>attention to chat scripts.
>
>I was amused that Hermione seems to know this about Harry's dad. Must 
>have been in Hogwarts A History. 
>
This scene totally confounded me.  For one thing, it showed what I had
already started to suspect - that there wasn't any real enmity/bad
feeling between Hermione and Ron and Harry at this point, and that they
seemed to be quite friendly - not the case at all, in canon.  It makes
the later scene when Ron makes Hermione cry quite unbelievable, or at
least, unexpected.  

Also - she has said Chaser, not Seeker!  Where did this come
from?????!!!
>


>The scene in which Oliver teaches Harry about Quidditch is notable 
>mainly for closeup looks at the Snitch and the Quidditch pitch, which 
>is a little hard to make out exactly. You can see the hoops in the 
>air and the obviously CGI'd tall, candy-colored towers that have 
>replaced stadium seats. Harry also gives a Bludger a fair whack, and 
>Oliver tells him that he would have made a good Beater.

I think that Sean Biggestaff is a very good actor.  He plays this scene
beautifully, IMO.

>The scene in which Quirrel runs in to announce the troll attack is 
>actually fairly funny. The troll fight follows canon fairly closely --
> Harry is the one to remind Ron that "Hermione doesn't know!" about 
>the troll, and the boys go bolting back to engage in what is actually 
>a pretty stirring battle sequence with a fairly unrealistic-looking 
>troll. McGonagall has a very funny moment where she awards the boys 
>100 points for "sheer, dumb luck."

Erm, it was 10 points between them.  I thought the troll was quite
realistic.  Great scene.  Quirrel's line before he fainted as well, was
good.  Did anyone else find the screaming in the Great Hall a bit much?

>When Harry's Nimbus 2000 arrives in the mail, McGonagall winks at 
>him, making it clear that she is the one who gave it to him. 

Why?  Are we supposed to believe that she bought him the broom?  I don't
get it.  And I also don't get why he gets the broom the day of his first
match, as well.  I also don't understand why they get Snape to go up to
Harry in the Great Hall and wish him good luck in the match.  What was
that about?  A devise to focus on his limp?
>
>And then we have Quidditch. 

Superb.  Interesting how the film goes from being very Dickensian (in
Diagon Alley) to Medieval - Quidditch feels like a magical relic from
the Middle Ages - very reminiscent of jousting.   Loved how fast it was
- shame there wasn't any interplay between Lee Jordan and Prof M.  Also
wanted Dean's Red Card line - not forthcoming (unless I missed it).

The Slytherins looked almost caricatures of your typical ugly oaf.
Scary.

>
>Best of all is the moment where Harry catches the Snitch and wins the 
>game - Daniel is excellent at looking insanely determined while he 
>rides that broomstick for all it's worth. At the end, he actually 
>stands up and SURFS his broomstick to victory! This will either annoy 
>you or make you laugh; it made me laugh. When they win, Daniel 
>manages to pull off excited delight without looking smug. Aw.

Fraid it annoyed me.  They could make the flying exciting enough without
resorting to something quite so unbelievable!

>Christmas comes, and the castle is covered in snow. A nod to the 
>location -- the castle makes a perfect Hogwarts. We have a Hermione 
>POV shot as she walks into the Great Hall all packed for the holidays 
>and sees Harry and Ron playing wizard chess;  Hermione tells them that
they need to be looking up Nicholas Flamel 
>over the holidays  and she stomps off; Ron observes that he 
>and Harry have "had a bad influence on her."

Second big disappointment for me, because I love the "Very safe, seeing
as they're dentists" line.  Why is it that in this film it is Ron who
always gets the line - not Hermione?    Not fair.  Much better than his
irritating line about priorities - which didn't seem in context at all,
to me - and this one.

>The Christmas Presents scene is actually very sweet. Harry looks 
>delighted to have recieved any gifts at all, and Ron's maroon jumper 
>is truly horrible -- it has a big red R across the front. The 
>Invisibility Cloak looks like burnout velvet, multicolored. The cloak 
>effect is well pulled off -- there's a slight shimmer when Harry 
>pulls it on, then he vanishes. His excursion to the Restricted 
>Section does bring us another Snape scene. Alan Rickman is a truly 
>great Snape; alas, he is sadly underused in the film. We also have 
>the Mirror of Erised scene, which is as charming as you might expect. 
>Harry sees James and Lily in the mirror, but no other family members, 
>just his parents. Rumors that Ron's mirror-gazing scene was cut are 
>false. "It's me! I'm Head Boy! I look GOOD!"

The cloak is terrific - much better utilised than I'd imagined.  Agree
that AR is very under utilised.  The Mirror of Erised - did not like
James Potter.  Was much older than he should have been and didn't look
anything like (IMO, of course).

>
>As Ashley pointed out earlier, Dumbledore's scenes seem oddly 
>lacking. The scene in which he explains to Harry what the Mirror does 
>is full of Dumbledore's gravitas, but lacking any of his humor. 

Yes, and this is the case all the way through.  Dumbledore comes across
as being extremely one-dimensional (as do many of the characters).
There is absolutely no hint of the eccentricity and the humour we know
he possesses.


> Lacking the knowledge that Harry, Ron 
>and Hermione are devastated over having failed their House, their 
>later victory lacks resonance.

Yes  - it's pretty meaningless, I agree.  Also, because Ravenclaw and
Hufflepuff are so unimportant in the film, their pleasure over
Slytherin's defeat isn't really shown properly either.

>Was not impressed by the unicorn scene. The hooded figure is 
>appropriately sinister but the unicorn looks like...well, nothing 
>very impressive. The centaur is a truly terrible CGI creation. It is 
>completely unconvincing. 

Absolutely terrible, I agree.  The dialogue was appalling too -
particularly when he says "I'll leave you here" or some such - it was a
line I think that was lifted from the book, but was totally
inappropriate, because they hadn't moved anywhere in the first place.
An awful scene.

>The Devil's Snare *looked* good. Apparently the secret here is that 
>if you relax, the plant will let you go. Hermione and Harry are able 
>to relax, but Ron has to be rescued by Hermione with a sunlight spell 
>which is impressive looking, but lacks the humor of the original 
>scene. "Are you a witch or not?" is gone; instead we have Ron 
>saying, "Well, good thing I was relaxed!" Harry shoots him a 
>glare. "No, good thing HERMIONE pays attention in Herbology class!"
>
My third big disappointment.  In fact, most of the problems I had with
the film was that very good, humorous, original dialogue was replaced
with dialogue which was infinitely inferior.  This scene is a case in
point - I love the "Are you a witch or not" line.  However, I think that
they did this because the Potions task was being omitted - and they
needed Hermione to solve one the tasks without help from the other two -
especially as Ron takes the kudos for the chess task.

>Ron fans will love the chess scene. 

So did I, and everyone knows that I'm no Ron fan.  Superb.  I actually
found this quite scary - the anticipation, knowing that Ron's knight is
going to get smashed was very well done indeed.  

> H/H 
>fans will be glum at the fact that the hug is omitted; still, 
>Hermione does deliver her entire "You're a great wizard, Harry...be 
>careful!" speech over Ron's inert body. Well, one cannot have 
>everything.  Hermione fans will be disappointed that her "logic 
>puzzle" task is cut. It does make the later award of 50 points to 
>Hermione for cool logic in the face of danger somewhat mysterious.

I hate that speech - sounds so sentimental.  I may have misheard, but I
thought that this was changed.  I thought that it was originally "in the
face of fire" - I remember Dumbledore saying intellect - there was no
direct reference to the Potions - could just have easily have applied to
the Devil's Snare.

>The Infirmary scene was shot at Oxford's Divinity School, IIRC, and 
>it provides a great interior. This scene, however, is in my opinion 
>the one that canon fans will have the hardest time with. Lily's 
>sacrifice is inadequately explained, and there is *no mention of 
>Snape at ALL* -- no mention of his connection with James, or why he 
>might want to save Harry's life. If I were Alan Rickman I'd be 
>annoyed about the fact that Snape's interestingness as a character is 
>being sadly diluted.

Yep.  IMO, the dialogue between Dumbledore and Harry was completely
bastardised and cut to pieces.  Sounded sentimental, without actually
making much sense.  Harry ends the film knowing much less about himself
and his history than the Harry in the book.  Richard Harris was very
disappointing as Dumbledore.  There was no "twinkle" and he was too
sober - wanted slightly more humour. 

>We are left with the Gryffindor-wins-the-House-Cup scene, which is 
>notably close to canon and very cute. Daniel, Rupert and Emma are all 
>adorable in this scene. Actually, so is Tom, who pulls off a pretty 
>good shocked-and-devastated Draco. It'd be easier not to like him if 
>he didn't resemble one of those Keane kids with the big eyes.

Yes - shame the scene doesn't work properly, because of comments made
above.  
>
>In the final scene, Hagrid gives Harry the photo album with his 
>parents' pictures in it as the Hogwarts Express is leaving the 
>station. The last shot is of Harry leaning out the train window, 
>waving goodbye.

A very good way to end the film. 
>
>Cassie


So, although I did enjoy the film, I did come away feeling a little
disappointed.  I felt that there was no reason to change dialogue, when
the original was infinitely superior.  I also thought it was a shame
that so many characters had so little screen time - particularly the
twins and Snape.  I won't even get started on everyone/ everything which
was completely missed out.  I know it is difficult to translate a book
such as this into a feature film - but what really worries me is that if
this one had to be condensed to the extent that the whole plot and
character development is very sketchy, how on earth are they going to
manage with the others - the books get progressively longer and more
complicated, and I don't think that a film of this nature is really
going to do them justice.

Catherine