Sunday, November 18, 2001
'Harry Potter' and the critics
Enquirer film critic Margaret A. McGurk gave Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone three stars and says the movie version of J.K. Rowling's phenomenal best-seller is faithful to its roots. Her observation: “Surprisingly, the film suffers serious weak spots in its use of special effects, including unconvincing low-tech methods, or too-obvious computer-generated moments. A climactic live chess match, for instance, not only lumbers along at a dull pace, but its effects look downright cheap.”
Here's what film critics from other newspapers are saying:
“Harry Potter, the film, looks just as dazzling as readers of (J.K.) Ms. Rowling's captivating book might hope. But the movie ultimately lacks the book's delightful whimsy and much of the sly verbal humor that made Ms. Rowling's tales so charming. Ms. Rowling wrote a book that's clever and witty, as well as scary, fanciful and sometimes sad. But not enough of that emotional range ends up on the screen.”
— Claudia Puig, USA Today
“There's magic galore in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. The most eagerly anticipated movie adaptation of a book since Gone With the Wind is a rousing success.”
— Jack Garner, Gannett News Service
“The most highly awaited movie of the year has a dreary, literal-minded competence, following the letter of the law as laid down by the author. . . . The picture is so careful that even the tape wrapped around the bridge of Harry's glasses seems to have come out of the set design. (It never occurred to anyone to show him taping the frame together.)”
— Elvis Mitchell, The New York Times
“(Director Chris) Columbus has risen to the task and delivered a quality piece of work in every department: as universally enjoyable (and at 152 minutes, as long) a kids' movie as Hollywood has turned out in years.”
— William Arnold, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
“The tagline proclaims, "Let the Magic Begin!' But magic is precisely the element most noticeably absent from the hotly anticipated film adaptation of J.K. Rowling's novel, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.”
— Todd Anthony, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
“Harry Potter, the movie, is more magic than Muggle (as non-magical persons are known), but only just. At its best, the film's visual dazzle equals the tasty wordplay of the novel. But it is overlong, overscored and curiously misshapen.”
— Carrie Rickey, The Philadelphia Inquirer
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