'Harry Potter & The Philosopher's Stone' was released in 2001 and stars Daniel Radcliffe as the titular boy wizard we've all come to love. Going back through the entire series of 'Harry Potter' was a fun thing to do for this week's upcoming 'Fantastic Beasts & Where To Find Them' and to celebrate, I will be posting two reviews every day until the Friday release. So, what to say about the one that started it all? It holds up remarkably well in many ways, but the flaws of the earlier films are more prominent than ever when seen through my now grown up eyes. First off, I'd like to say that the casting for this film was absolutely perfect. These films show that child actors can be great, even outdoing adults twice their age when given the correct materials to work with. Not to say the adults don't do any worse, in fact their all on their 'A' game here as well, with the late Richard Harris's Dumbledore and Maggie Smith standing out among them.
This film and its sequel were directed by Chris Columbus, who brought us the first two 'Home Alone' films earlier in his career and that same style is felt here. The ending of the film goes to some darker territories than many other family films would at the time, however Columbus does seem to be restraining himself and not quite capturing the book's more mature tone. The charm is there, but this one can feel a little too 'kiddie' at times. The CGI effects are really the downer here when revisiting the film. They look bad, plain and simple especially the Cerberus guard dog towards the end, it surprised me how it looked worse than some 90's flicks but that may just be a personal nitpick.
The best thing to take away from 'The Philosopher's Stone' other than its cast is the brilliant score by my favorite composer John Williams. This man is a legend (Jaws, Jurassic Park, Schindler's List, Indiana Jones, Superman) and here, he provides us with what I think is easily in the top 10 favorite scores he's produced. It has all of the whimsy and adventure one would want from a 'Harry Potter' score, but with the perfection of a high profile talent. It's really a shame that Mr. Williams did not return to many of the 'Harry Potter' films other than his themes as I think they could have really needed him.
So there we have it, 'Harry Potter & The Philosopher's Stone'. It's still a fun and charming family film and really holds up after all these years. The film does have a much lighter tone than the book and some of the effects don't hold up all that well, but really this isn't a bad film. Not that you expected me to hate on it did you?
No comments:
Post a Comment