‘Harry Potter’ casts a hasty spell

Geoff Carter

Friday, Nov. 16, 2001 | 9:54 a.m.

I read the book. Three months ago I picked up J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" out of obligation; three weeks ago I read the fourth book in the series, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," strictly out of admiration.

I didn't expect to like the first book as much as I did, and I enjoyed the subsequent more still -- they are darker in tone, thicker in plot and wholly self-contained. You don't need to know from J.R.R. Tolkien or Roald Dahl to enjoy them.

Chris Columbus' film of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" is much the same way. Recent family films have leaned too heavily on cultural quotations to get them through: take "Shrek," a hip, funny film marred by dated references to "The Matrix" and "The Dating Game." Thematically, at least, "Harry Potter" stands on its own power -- it doesn't lean on the spirit of the times. Like the book it was based on, "Harry Potter" makes its own era.

Specifically, it makes J.K. Rowling's era come alive, right from the beginning. As the picture opens, venerable wizard Albus Dumbledore (Richard Harris) and good-hearted behemoth Rubeus Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane) leave infant Harry at the doorstep of his non-wizard ("muggle") relatives, the Dursleys. The evil wizard Voldemort has just murdered Harry's real parents; he survived the attack by unknown means, and Dumbledore wants to spare him the crushing fame Harry is already gaining in the wizarding world.

Eleven years later, Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) is a fairly normal kid -- a bit resigned to the abuse he constantly receives from the Dursleys, but unfailingly polite and levelheaded, and unaware of his remarkable past. He's completely shocked when Hagrid arrives on his 11th birthday bearing a home-baked cake, a pink umbrella that can shoot fire and an invitation to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

In short order, Harry is whisked through the magic shops of Diagon Alley -- a fantastic world seemingly hidden inside London proper -- equipped to become a "thumping good wizard," and travels off to school and his destiny.

At Hogwarts, Harry quickly makes two close friends: bookish, overachieving Hermione Granger (Emma Watson) and the earnest but poor Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint). He also makes two enemies just as quickly -- privileged brat Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton) and Professor Severus Snape (Alan Rickman), a Rasputin-like figure with a stare so penetrating that Harry can feel it.

He doesn't have much time to be afraid, however -- Headmaster Dumbledore and Deputy Headmistress Minerva McGonagall (Maggie Smith) keep Harry on his toes, teaching him the craft of magic and, in dribs and drabs, the secrets of his past.

Watching Harry's education is an eye-popping experience. In the course of his first year, he fights a troll, learns to traverse Hogwarts' moving staircases and faces down an enormous three-headed dog named "Fluffy."

Radcliffe is a great Harry -- he seldom, if ever, flinches or goggles in disbelief, because it's all a dream to him. Any minute now, he seems to be thinking, all of this will vanish.

Director Columbus, cinematographer John Seale, production designer Stuart Craig and John Williams' lyrical score conspire to cement Harry's vision; the combination of top-shelf visuals and music make Hogwarts as real as Rowling made the school in print.

With exceptions, alas. Fans in the UK have already bemoaned the film's omission of several details -- the Sorting Hat's song and Peeves the Poltergeist stand out -- to pare down the running time, but have kept curiously mum about the film's other oversights. The motives and personalities of most of the adult characters are lost. The villains of the story -- and the threat they present -- are relegated to the far background.

And for a Columbus film -- he of the unfairly maligned "Home Alone" and rightfully maligned "Mrs. Doubtfire" -- "Harry Potter" is lacking in humor and whimsy.

Take Richard Harris and Alan Rickman as examples of "Harry Potter's" critical faults. Harris' Dumbledore, a jovially paternal presence in the book, appears in the film only to provide soft-spoken exposition. Rickman plays the dark and sinister Snape absolutely pitch-perfect (he is ideally cast), but suffers from too little screen time. In fact, one of the acts his character performs isn't explained in the film, as it is in the book; one line of dialogue would have done it.

However, it's unlikely anyone will care much. Between the Quidditch match -- a broom-bound wizard's sport that plays like a riot on the screen -- and the film's action-packed finale, all oversights will be forgiven and forgotten. If they're even noticed, that is: the preview audience, most of which were under the age of 12, drew a collective breath at fade-in and didn't let it go for almost an hour.

Young viewers will want to believe in Harry's impossible world, and director Columbus gives it to them. Very few will realize that "Harry Potter's" true magic works best in print.