Presto! A winner

Visual treat awaits Harry Potter fans

Robert Denerstein, News Film Critic

Published October 16, 2001 at midnight

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If you're 11, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone should have you watching with wide-eyed wonder as scene after scene from a beloved book springs to life. Harry Potter may fall a spell or two short of total enchantment, but it offers more delights than disappointments - and that qualifies as one of the year's great reliefs.

Considering the daunting nature of the task facing director Chris Columbus, getting the first Harry Potter movie off the ground without doing a disservice to a wildly popular book constitutes a real triumph.

Columbus wisely chose to let the material speak for itself. With help from an A-level production team, the director focused on creating an encompassing visual environment for 11-year-old Harry, a boy who discovers he's a wizard.

Columbus takes Harry (and us) out of the world of Muggles (non-magical folk) as he heads for the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the place where Harry learns his craft. The look of the magic world seems to have been channeled directly from author J.K. Rowling's imagination.

The opening hour of this largely episodic, 2 1/2-hour movie proves enthralling. We meet the odious Dursleys (Harry's tormentors) and the lumbering Hagrid (the giant who summons Harry to Hogwarts). Owls flash across the screen (the mail delivery system in the magic world) and we discover the teeming bustle of Diagon Alley, where Harry buys his school supplies.

Aside from a couple of glitches (the ghosts inhabiting Hogwarts should have been sent to the nearest fun house), the movie creates a world that's nicely balanced between ordinary behavior and magical effects.

By now, nearly everyone knows Harry's story, so only a brief summary is required. When Harry was an infant, a bad wizard (the evil Voldemort) killed his parents. The orphaned Harry spends 11 years with the Dursleys - aunt, uncle and obnoxious cousin.

At 11, Harry learns that he's special, a wizard who survived a major blast of Voldemort's evil. The lightning bolt scar on Harry's forehead marks this initial encounter with evil.

With a seven-movie series at stake, Columbus chose to stick closely to the book, clinging to Rowling's story like a child might clutch a security blanket. Some plot developments have been dropped, yet it's difficult to think of many movies that have been this faithful to their source material.

In keeping with his genuflection at Rowling's altar, Columbus insists that everything look precisely right, including Harry, played by 12-year-old Daniel Radcliffe. Radcliffe's delicate features and spunk mark him as a typical English boarding school kid, although the camera occasionally catches him looking awe-struck at the special effects.

To add weight, Columbus has assembled a strong adult cast. Included are Richard Harris, as the reedy-voiced Dumbledore (head of Hogwarts); the subtly revealing Maggie Smith (as Professor McGonagall; the suspiciously haughty Alan Rickman (as Professor Snape); the enormous Robbie Coltrane (as the giant Hagrid) and Ian Hart (as the stammering Professor Quirrell).

The best child performances come from the supporting actors. The lovely Emma Watson proves bossy and brainy as Hermione Granger. Rupert Grint does some show stealing as Harry's classmate Ron, a young man from a poor family.

Watching Harry Potter, with its British cast, serves as a reminder that the books are a clever amalgam of British literary and historical conceits, combining everything from boarding-school rituals to medieval mythology. Mercifully absent are the kind of high-tech trappings that can make children's movies look like showrooms for electronic gadgetry.

The movie's boarding-school atmosphere (the division of students into houses such as Slytherin and Gryffindor) provides the meat of the first installment, that and eagerly awaited set pieces such as the Quidditch game in which Harry plays a sport that requires mastering the art of flying on a broomstick. Views of Gringotts, a bank run by goblins, and of the vast dining hall at Hogwarts are impressive.

Certain scenes may be a scary for little ones. Watching Fluffy, the large three-headed dog that guards the magical stone of the title, could unnerve toddlers. A game of wizard's chess orchestrated by Ron comes off with booming vigor.

I'm not a big John Williams fan, but his score seemed right for the material, although it sometimes overpowers the imagery.

So why not go the distance, give Harry an A for his journey to Hogwarts and be done with it?

Several reasons. After the first hour, it becomes clear that Harry lacks sufficient dramatic urgency to carry it to a conclusion. The movie's momentum builds, subsides and sometimes stalls. The sorcerer's stone (at the heart of what drives the plot) isn't particularly impressive, and the movie's sense of evil may not loom large enough.

Devotion to detail may have pushed Columbus (and screenwriter Steve Koves) into overlooking some of Rowling's wry humor. And the final act - in which Harry squares off against evil - lacks the original look of the earlier scenes.

Still, all together now, let's say, ''Whew.''

With the first movie out of the way, creative juices may flow more freely. Fans may be more willing to grant Columbus (Home Alone, Mrs. Doubtfire and Bicentennial Man) more license.

If not, they'll probably do no worse than they've already done, creating a movie that blends nicely into the Harry Potter phenomenon. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone may not be a classic, but it's more than hoopla and hype.

It does well to remember that the Potter books weren't made popular by a promotional machine (that kicked in later), but by the devotion of young readers, most of whom should leave the theater well pleased.

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