Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (David Yates, 2011)

[I guess I should issue a spoiler warning for this review, but honestly, if you've neither read the book nor seen the movie yet are still reading reviews hoping not to be spoiled, what the hell is wrong with you?]

Viewed as a referendum on the Harry Potter film franchise (to say nothing of my childhood), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 is bound to fail. With precious few exceptions, this series has favored exposition over organic growth, deflated climaxes and spotty special effects, and at times this franchise has been so lifeless that Britain's talent pool has been drained to give these films any weight at all. Numerous critics and admirers have remarked upon the franchise's consistency given the number of editors and directors that have taken on the material, but I think that is something of a detriment. Regardless of who's made these films, the studio has made sure that nothing, not even Alfonso Cuaron's "none more black" mise-en-scène, has rocked the boat. Hiring David Yates, a workman whose primary skill has been putting exposed film into cans, seemed the final push to make these movies as crowd-pleasingly safe as possible.

And yet, Deathly Hallows Part 2, like its predecessor, shows Yates not overcoming his flaws but offsetting them with narrow but powerful strengths. The final installment in this film franchise suffers the same overarching, aforementioned issues that plague all these films, and it also suffers from the convolution, calculated audience appeasement and rush-job pacing of Rowling's written conclusion. Yet for once, I can confidently say that few, if any, of the film's major flaws can truly be traced back to Yates, while a great deal of its moments of pure atmosphere and character are specifically the result of his hand.

Harry Potter Books, Ranked

Compared to my marked indifference to the films, the Harry Potter books continue to charm me long after I move beyond YA fiction. The endless exposition does get to me at times, but there's a reason these books caught on: the relatable characters, the engaging plot and the element of surprise that remains in these works after numerous rereads and a general understanding of its wholesale ripoff of classical hero archetypes. I've cheered on Neville or been smitten by Hermione as much as I've been affected by any characters in fiction. So, to offset the light cynicism of my film post, allow me to take a more pleasant stroll down Memory Lane with Rowling's novels.

Harry Potter Films, Ranked

With the final installment of the Harry Potter film franchise at last upon us, allow me to briefly take stock of a film franchise that has often failed to capture the magic of its magical source material yet continues to suck me in almost against my will. I noticed as I compiled this list how few of the films really held any pull over me at all these days, and in nearly every case, when I revised my opinion of a film, the film in question went down in my estimation. Still, there are moments to treasure in all of these films, even the worst ones. When the franchise's impeccable casting and generally competent setpieces are allowed front-and-center over awkward comic relief and endless exposition, even the weakest film shines, if only for a moment. To give a sense of my opinion of these films as films, I included ratings next to each entry, along with how I originally rated them back when I rewatched the films two years ago before Half-Blood Prince. So without further ado, let's take one last tour through Hogwarts.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

After running through my marathon viewing of the previous five installments of the Harry Potter franchise in the last two days, I've come to a simple realization: as a whole, the series is frustratingly average. For a series set in a magical alternate world tucked away from our weary doldrums, it never conveys any sense of the wonder of J.K. Rowling's mad creation. Even as the series grew darker with each sequel, half the fun of reading them was exploring new places and oddball characters, which gave them an unassailable joyousness no matter how bleak the outcome looked for our heroes.

Not that Harry is feeling particularly cheery at the start of Half-Blood Prince. Now exonerated in the court of public opinion following proof of Voldemort's return, Harry must endure press junkets mere minutes after watching his godfather Sirius die. This devastating moment rarely has any impact on the story at all, however, perhaps because the last film failed to wring much emotion out of it. Dumbledore whisks him away, and soon he plucks Harry from his summer break begin the hunt for their nemesis.

Michael Gambon has been a treat ever since he took over for the late, great Richard Harris in the third film, but he brings his A-game this time, mixing regret, quiet strength and subtle humor effortlessly. He holds the entire film together as he takes Harry on strolls through a magical Memory Lane to trace Voldemort's history.

The first act of the film is perhaps the best stretch of the film series: it captures the darkness of the novel, and Yates' direction is sturdy and evocative. Harry's trips with Dumbledore and the Pensieve scene involving a young Tom Riddle (Hero Fiennes-Tiffin, nephew of Ralph Fiennes, Voldemort himself) are deeply and wonderfully unsettling, and I caught myself tensing up at times. A note, though: when Death Eaters fly through London and destroy a crowded Muggle bridge, the effect is somewhat spoiled when the camera zooms out from people frantically running to see the bridge twisting...without a soul standing on it. That's pretty basic animation, guys.

Then we start following our beloved trio through the school year, and Half-Blood Prince loses its way. Yates and writer Steve Kloves suddenly drop the dark air of the first act in favor of a protracted inspection of the romantic woes of all three. Ron and Hermione's attempts to woo the other only drive them further apart, while Harry apparently has to queue up for a crack at Ron's little sis Ginny (Bonnie Wright). These slightly comical interactions throw off the pacing and greatly distract from the mission at hand. I've read a number of reviews claiming that this movie works because it shows the characters maturing like normal teenagers despite the predicament surrounding them, but Kloves only explores this aging through unfunny comic relief.

There is one moment, when Hermione sits dejected as Ron snogs a clingy devotee and asks how Harry feels when he sees other boys with Ginny. As Ron walks past with his facesucking buddy in tow, Harry nearly whispers, "It feels like that." That one line is achingly beautiful, and more lines like that would have made the distraction from the Voldemort story because it genuinely would have fleshed these characters out. But no, that line is sadly just a fluke. Why Yates decided to stick with these subplots at the expense of the excellent Voldemort history lesson is beyond me.

Furthermore, the final battle in Hogwarts has been drastically altered and excised, and Yates took the emotional weight of the scene along with it. When the identity of the Half-Blood Prince is revealed, it's already been softened by a scene cut and pasted from the seventh book that openly hints at the true nature behind the final tragedy. And for all the planning the Death Eaters put into breaking into Hogwarts, they seem to stroll out as quickly as they enter, leaving only a single vandalized room in their wake. Imagine if Robert De Niro's character spent all of Heat planning, only to walk into the bank at the end and make a deposit.

On the positive side, the acting is up to the usual standards. Radcliffe may never be convincing as a reluctant, angsty leader (or even one of the three), and Watson still over-pronounces each line, but the others are great. Poor Rupert Grint has always made the best of a bad situation with the under-written Ron -- heck, when the fame-whore Slughorn (Jim Broadbent) never remembers his name, I felt he did so not because the Weasleys are ordinary wizards but because even I know nothing about him at this point of the film franchise -- but he gets some big laughs with his dopey grin and his constant bemusement. Both Fiennes-Tiffin and Frank Dillane (who plays the teen Riddle) are pitch-perfect in their roles, and Dillane in particular makes me wish far more of the film had been devoted to him working his icy charm on unsuspecting adults.

However, it's Tom Felton, the best of the child actors since the first film, who steals the show as the hardened yet tortured Draco. He's always had that haughty sneer down pat, but we see another side of him in this film, and he outperforms even the adults. If only Yates had stopped replaying the scene of him ripping the curtain off of a magic cabinet over and over and used that time to let Felton do something else, because I believed every choice Draco made in this movie, even more so than I did in he books.

All in all, Half-Blood Prince, like all of its predecessors save Prisoner of Azkaban, has excellent moments but fails to add up into a cohesive whole. Its omissions and alterations result in an enjoyable movie, but one that builds to a climax that never comes. As with "Order of the Phoenix," it takes an emotionally charged ending and mishandles it to the point of tedium. And for the love of God, will they give Alan Rickman something to do before this series ends?

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Easy come, easy go, I guess. After two films of solid quality injected some much needed life into the film franchise, David Yates, director of the lauded miniseries State of Play, took the reins and set about adapting the longest, most rambling of the Potter books. But never mind that, as the real change behind the camera is Steve Kloves long-awaited (read: the two days since I started re-watching these) departure from the series, to be replaced by Michael Goldenberg. That news alone made me eager to see how the writing compared to Kloves' literal, dispassionate style.

Sadly, Goldenberg's writing does not deviate from this formula, and though he excises the many tangents that sidelined the momentum of the novel, he fails to capture the hidden excellence and relevancy buried within it. After the initial sequence in which Harry and Dudley are attacked by dementors -- the first truly suspenseful moment of the series -- Harry is launched into a world on the brink of destroying itself in panic: Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge, heretofore an affable if somewhat detached fellow, refuses to believe that Voldemort has returned, and he's done everything in his power to discredit both Harry and Dumbledore. He jumps at the chance to expel Harry when he learns that the boy used magic outside of Hogwarts, but Dumbledore intervenes, only souring relations between the two further.

Fudge covers his losses by establishing one of his minions, Dolores Umbridge (Imelda Staunton) as the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, eventually promoting her to the gruesome new position of "High Inquisitor." Much has already been written of Staunton's performance, but I really can't stress this enough: her portrayal of Umbridge is, by leaps and bounds, the single finest performance in the film series. She nails Umbridge's shrill, pink-tinged fascism so well you'd almost think Rowling wrote the character out of her performance rather than the other way around. She captures both the insufferable haughtiness of the character as well as her terrifying fascism. The role is notably scaled back in the shortening of the film, yet Staunton commands every second of her screen time, and I highly doubt anyone else who joins the series in the final few films will bring remotely as much to the part as her.

If only the writing had latched onto her coattails and merely ridden it home to its natural conclusion. Order of the Phoenix is a transparent commentary on the staunch conservatism of Thatcherian England but also the more contemporary fascistic nature of the Bush administration. Umbridge, a frilly stand-in for Thatcher, is sent to Hogwarts to monitor the students (and, chiefly, Dumbledore's influence on them), only to go mad with power. Her ability to authorize illegal activities when she wants to use them reflects upon Bush's constant self-absolution, and this might have been a fascinating allegory on sacrificing liberty for safety and delusion now that it had been freed from such aimless subplots as Hermione's championing of the house elf cause.

However, this is a teen film aimed at the broadest possible audience, so Goldenberg takes no risks in making a political statement. A shame; after all, Umbridge's likeness to Thatcher alone could have allowed them to make a commentary on democratic fascism in general as opposed to simply Bush, and anyone who would object to such a thematic exploration likely isn't a fan of these witchcraft books, anyway. Instead, the focus is placed squarely on the budding romantic maturation of the characters, which goes nowhere fast. Ron and Hermione still spend their time sniping each other instead of just admitting what's obvious to everyone, while Harry's relationship with Cho lacks the marvelous awkwardness of the novel's depiction. Order might have been the most interesting Potter movie yet, but it plays more like an angsty television series.

I mean,they could have at least gotten the emotions right. They mis-manage the cause of Harry's angst, though Radcliffe makes the best of it. Ron and Hermione fail to even get laughs in their clichéd inability to tell each other how they feel. Then again, both characters have become so secondary that Watson (who picks things up a bit from the last film but still doesn't match her peak in the third film) and Grint should be happy that they got to be in it at all. When a major character death occurs, it lacks all of the emotional devastation of the novel and instead seems drawn out and boring.

The final battle throughout the Department of Mysteries feels off, not only because the place is greatly simplified from the horrific quagmire of the book. Truth be told, it seems little more than a shinier version of the maze from Goblet of Fire. However, the showdown between Voldemort and Dumbledore is exquisite: far from a drawn-out extravaganza so typical of blockbusters, their fight is, quite simply, nasty, brutish and short. Though it's got some grand spectacle, this is far more fearsome for its brevity and ferocity.

In the end, Yates did a fine job of trimming the fat from the book, but he just so happened to throw the meat out with it. If it weren't for Fiennes and especially Staunton, there'd be practically nothing to this film. It had promise both as a political allegory and as an emotional character exploration, but it failed to materialize anything of substance. I worry that Yates' inability to capture the emotional weight of the story will impact the next film, as it is the darkest and most devastating of the series. Let us hope, however, that he redeems himself.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

While I disliked the omissions and alterations of Prisoner of Azkaban when I first saw it, revisiting it after aging enough to distance myself from a rabid love of the books allowed me to appreciate it for the artistic triumph that it is. It's still got its fair share of weaknesses, but the character moments and stylistic feel made it far more interesting than the previous films combined. I noted with a certain sense of regret and resignation that Steve Kloves once again penned the screenplay for this next sequel, but Azkaban was a step up, so anything's possible, right?

To my surprise, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is almost as good as Prisoner of Azkaban, and sometimes a bit better. Cuaròn's direction hinted at an Expressionist influence, which the latest director, Mike Newell, mixes with the action movie vibe of the Triwizard challenges and really plays up in the final act, in which the film becomes a true horror film, albeit one softened to appeal to the young demographic. Mad-Eye Moody himself looks like he tumbled out of a Fritz Lang movie, while Hogwarts' juxtaposition o cluttered, maze-like halls and the quiet terrain that engulfs its exterior continues to cast a sense of foreboding.

Harry finds himself in the Triwizard tournament, which is only open to 17-year-olds, when his name somehow appears in the titular goblet, which announces the names of the champions representing each of the three schools involved: Fleur Delacour (Clémence Poesy) for Beauxbatons, star Quidditch player Viktor Krum (Stanislav Ianevski) for Durmstrang and Cedric Diggory (Robert Pattinson) for Hogwarts. Understandably, these rightful contestants and their headmasters are a bit miffed to discover that Hogwarts has two shots at glory and that such a young boy (the biggest celebrity in their world, no less) should steal the spotlight from them. Harry is simply terrified.

Aiding him in preparing for these tasks, naturally, are Ron and Hermione, who apparently reached the pitiful apex of their character arcs in the film series and must now start the slide down back into mediocrity and two-dimensionality. Harry's moodiness is on the horizon, but here it's Ron's time for angst, which just comes off as shallow. The book didn't handle this subplot in a particularly deep way, but you could at least understand why Ron, the dirt poor kid always in the shadow of the celebrity Harry and the whiz Hermione, might deeply resent his friend thrust into the spotlight yet again, but you'd think he take into account how much Harry loathes the attention and how he never seeks it. Watson reverts to that annoying breathlessness that defined her line deliveries in the first film. Even as she must deal with the half-formed love triangle involving Krum and Ron, she becomes less interesting than ever thanks to the incessant overacting.

Also helping out is Moody (Brendan Gleeson), a battle-scarred Auror (dark wizard catcher) with a fake leg and a magical replacement eye. He accepts the empty Defense Against the Dark Arts position, presumably because he clearly has so few limbs left to lose. Gleeson is on fire as the thundering, lumbering Moody, capturing the character's off-kilter, slightly sadistic humor nicely. The only other noteworthy addition is David Tennant as Barty Crouch Jr., though the nature of the character means he remains mostly unseen, unfortunately.

Each of the Triwizard tasks are filmed with a harmonious blend of blockbuster action and darker chills, particularly in the the reedy mire of the lake bottom and the icy fright of the maze. When Harry winds up in a graveyard to face his nemesis, the tone only grows colder, thanks in no small part to Ralph Fiennes' short but sweet appearance as the reconstituted Voldemort. Before he even utters a word, you know they found the right man for the job: Voldemort speaks not with an evil, serpentine hiss but with the ennui befitting someone so powerful. The wretched stammering of his summoned followers doesn't concern him, and the only time he displays any emotion at all is in his wrath toward Harry. Fiennes is one of the finest casting choices yet in a franchise stuffed to the gills with magnificent actors.

Sadly, many of the newcomers fail to elicit any response other than annoyance. Pattinson's job is simply to stand there and look pretty (a damn fine warm-up for Twilight if there ever was one), while Poesy and Ianevski act like caricatures. Miranda Richardson knows the steps but not the rhythm to muckraking gossip hag Rita Skeeter, and what might have been a nice commentary on the corruption of glamorization of the media is sacrificed in favor of a paper-thin characterization (you can deal with adult themes in kid movies; see Pixar). Roger Lloyd Pack plays Barty Crouch Sr. less on the verge of a breakdown as in the novel as insufferably wild-eyed. I know Gary Oldmans had more practice at playing loopy, but compare his mania in the third film to Pack's mugging and there's just no contest in the crazy department.

Still, despite some terrible dialogue delivered in manners that don't help the matter, Goblet of Fire does a marvelous job of sustaining the excellence of the previous film while adding enough plot back in to make a reasonable and linear narrative. I still prefer Azkaban for its artistry, but Newell should be commended for finding a working blend of the inoffensive popcorn sheen of the first two films with the darker tone and direction of the third.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

After Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets solved some of the issues of the first film while further entrenching many of its other weaknesses, Chris Columbus at last parted ways with the franchise as the producers decided to extend the shooting length for the rest of the films to ensure they weren't rushed. After fantasy maestro Guillermo Del Toro declined the offer to direct, the mantle passed to one of his compatriots, Alfonso Cuaròn.

That must have seemed a bit odd to those old enough to know who Alfonso Cuaròn was: his previous film, y tu mamá también, remains one of the most critically lauded films of the decade, but you'd hardly hand the keys of a fantasy franchise to the director for it. The closest he'd even come to fantasy was A Little Princess, which is based on children's literature but not more about a child who believes in magic than a world in which it truly exists. After the first two movies triumphed at the box office, perhaps the producers felt they could do no wrong and found themselves willing to experiment. Even so, it was a gamble.

One that paid off magnificently, I might add. Steve Kloves, still, unfortunately, the writer, apparently read some critiques of the other two films which singled out his devotion to the narrative and mystery of the books and not the character. A curious fixation, as surely the legions of Potter fans already knew what was going to happen, so the emphasis on mystery made little sense.

That's not to say that there's no mysterious air to the film; far from it, it's the only one of the film series yet to actually make you wonder what you'll see next. We know that Sirius Black (Gary Oldman) escapes from the wizard prison Azkaban, and that it somehow makes life for Harry more dangerous, but Cuaròn so streamlines the film (down a healthy 20 minutes from the previous installment) that details are left vague. We never really learn how he escaped, and even the explanation of his crime goes no further than some mumblings of betrayal and of his relationship to Harry. The overwhelming majority of those who have seen or will watch the movie in the future will know all about Sirius, but enough of him is concealed in darkness and Oldman plays him with enough of a manic edge that the character works better than he ever did on the page.

Black's story seems all the more unsettling with Cuaròn's direction. Where the first two films had too much of a glossed-over look, even in the darkness of the Chamber of Secrets, Azkaban borders on the Expressionist in its superb use of shadow and mise-en-scène. Hogwarts now appears more cluttered, more angular, and its sweeping majesty carries a bit of an edge to it. The soul-sucking dementors are not as scary as they perhaps should be, yet the effect of them moving through the scenes are (pardon the pun) chilling. The lone shot of a flower wilting and freezing to herald their advance is more captivating than anything in the first two movies.

Also joining the cast alongside Oldman are Timothy Spall as the sniveling Peter Pettigrew, rat-faced even when he's not turning himself into an animal, and David Thewlis, whose Remus Lupin looks just as dishelved as his Johnny from Naked, only with an air of warmth and soft, encouraging wit. Rounding out the new additions is Michael Gambon as Dumbledore, replacing the late Richard Harris. Gambon thankfully does not attempt to ape Harris' portrayal and instead moves the character somewhat closer to his original personality: in one great bit, he absent-mindedly taps Ron on his broken leg as Ron winces in agony. Emma Thompson's loopy Trewlaney, however, is simply too over-the-top for her own good, and she fails to elicit more than a chuckle or two.

In place of the cluttered narrative of the first two films, Prisoner of Azkaban takes the time to follow its leads, who have matured along with their characters. Ron seems doomed to never move outside of comic relief, but Grint pulls it off nicely, and his burgeoning romantic scenes with Hermione -- more explicitly stated than in the book -- have a sweet, unforced charm to them. Radcliffe, who's never really gotten the angsty aspect of the character down, does a fine job of it here: when he announces his intention to find and kill Sirius Black, he conveys some dark nuance. But it's Watson, normally the weakest link of the trio, who walks away with the entire movie, even outpacing the adults. Hermione's put up with a lot throughout the series, and that one punch she lands on Malfoy still makes me want to stand and cheer.

Unfortunately, Kloves' noble attempt to inject character moments reveal his weaknesses as a writer. Without the safety net of simple recreation to help him, we see his inability to coax nuance out of the story, and the mystery of the film comes from omissions and Cuaròn's framing. Indeed, the director's rapport with the kids garners their best work yet, and the older actors are made a real part of the story and not simply plot devices for the first time. It also helps the film greatly that John Williams backs off the insufferable loudness of his previous scores, and actually this ranks as one of his finest scores and one of his most wonderfully nuanced.

That soundtrack aids the visual poetry of Cuaròn's direction, and combined with the interesting, if muddled, story makes for a major leap forward in the franchise's quality. The director's deft hand with a bigger scale set the stage for Children of Men, the perfect mix of his intimate detail and this newly found epic sweep, and reflects a clear influence of his friend Guillermo Del Toro. This dark, vaguely Expressionist fairy tale is the first of the Harry Potter films to really grab your excitement, and it's a dam good fantasy film in its own right.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

All right, then. Now that I've gotten all the background for my feelings on the Harry Potter franchise out in my previous review -- hey, it's almost like an allegory for the film itself! -- I can now fully concentrate on the film at hand, hopefully wasting less of your time with fewer words. Let's see how long I can go until I shatter that promise, shall we?

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone nearly bored me to tears; its endless exposition and world building left it without an emotional core, thanks in no small part to the amateurish acting of it three leads (who, to be completely fair, were indeed amateurs). Having not watched either it or this second installment since before the fourth film hit theaters, I found myself dreading the prospect of revisiting the other Columbus adaptation. After all, the first film was downright cloying in its faithfulness, and I didn't remember this deviating too much, either. So, I at last resigned myself to inevitable defeat, comforted slightly by the realization that soon I could move on to the third and fourth installments.

Happily, the film was a noticeable improvement all around. The Chamber of Secrets, working in the same world established in the first novel, freed Rowling to actually explore her characters a bit and, alongside the rambling Order of the Phoenix, contains some of the least plot of the series. Ergo, when Chris Columbus and Steve Kloves treat this book with the same adoring care they did the first, they can, in theory, spend more time with the characters.

Amazingly, Chamber of Secrets is a good 10 minutes longer than the previous movie, though its pace has noticeably quickened. Harry languishes in the Dursleys' home for the summer, kept away from his new friends, who curiously don't even send him any post. One night he's visited by a self-tormenting house-elf named Dobby who plays like a poor man's Gollum (basically, he's all Sméagol, yet he stil fights wth himself). Dobby begs this kind and powerful boy not to return to Hogwarts, lest unspeakable danger befall him. To ensure this, he causes a ruckus which the Dursleys blame on the lad. The Weasleys break him out, though, and soon Ron and Harry are off for another year of adventure.

Newcomers in the film include Jason Isaacs as a note-perfect Lucius Malfoy, who out-sneers even Tom Felton's Draco when he condescends to Harry and the entire Weasley clan. But it's Kenneth Branagh's Gilderoy Lockhart who steals the show. The foppish oaf with a winning smile (literally) takes up the vacant position for Defense Against the Dark Arts, but he quickly reveals himself to be nothing more than a charlatan and a buffoon. Such a role easily calls for some scenery chewing, but Branagh is just restrained enough to make Lockhart work as both comic relief and infuriating sub-villain.

But the main enemy this time is not the Dark Arts teacher but an unknown assailant attacking students with Muggle blood. A message is written in blood: "The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the Heir, beware." Soon, Harry's ability to speak with snakes is revealed, and he becomes the prime suspect. At some point, he stumbles upon a magic diary that can converse with him and even show him memories from the last time that the Chamber was opened.

These events start the ball rolling toward the darker tone of later installments in the series, but Columbus still attempts to create an air of whimsy about the picture, something he couldn't even do when the tone of the novel fit the approach. I mean, Harry and co. have to interview the ghost of a girl who was killed in the previous attack spree, yet that never feels as disturbing as it really is.

When Harry at last descends into the Chamber, though, things pick up considerably. The animation of the basilisk looks nice, but it never blends into the backgrounds convincingly, and Columbus' stabs at action shots lapse into absurdity -- a POV shot of the snake lunging for Harry is particularly laughable. I also picked up on one line, when Tom Riddle, the man in the diary and the basilisk's master, shouts: "The basilisk may be blinded, but it can still hear you!" A problem: snakes don't have ears. Now, it can pick up vibrations, sure, but even a giant snake that can kill with a stare is sill a snake.

On the plus side, the acting gets a bit of a boost this time around. Rickman still has little to do (indeed he is tragically under-used throughout the series) and Harris, though authoritative, fails to capture either Dumbledore's loopy essence or his hardened core. He instead seems more like an English Mr. Miyagi, offering faintly witty nuggets of advice and encouragement. Radcliffe, however, delivers his lines with more conviction, and Grint works as great comic relief if not a strong lead in his own right. Watson too has improved her approach, still capturing Hermione's nerdiness but backing off the more annoying deliveries. Even as new cast members such as Branagh and Isaacs steal their scenes, these kids can finally hold their own, though it helps that the rest of the vets are still either phoning it in or limited by the script.

The entire film's quality in relation to the previous film can be summed up in its score: John Williams' soundtrack for the first film was a garish, clanking affair that fully displayed the composer's worst traits -- overly boisterous blasts of brass and strings that signal triumph even before the battle's been won. And the Diagon Alley music sounded like a lame carnival. Here, he's more subdued, but barely. He still chucks himself in the middle of scenes and robs them of their power, but just not quite as often. That's Chamber of Secrets in a nutshell: still a weak, too-literal movie, but the signs of a positive growth are certainly exhibited.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

With the release of the sixth Harry Potter installment upon us, I decided to revisit the other five films for the first time in ages, to chart the series's progression on celluloid but also because nostalgia is a dangerous, dangerous thing and I seek to undermine it where possible. Then again, I don't recall ever going crazy for any of the actual films; it was the book series that, like countless others of my generation, gripped me. It didn't make me want to read -- I was always an avid reader, though I've shamefully fallen off the wagon since leaving for college -- but the series always kept me entertained.

Until I tried to re-read them, that is. About two years ago, before the final book hit shelves, I had a marathon reading session over a few weeks, most of which felt like arduous labor the writing had so soured on me. I actually gave up on the first two books altogether because I found their styles to be so simplistic, while the fifth was so cumbersome and tangential I wondered if they just published her first draft by mistake. But films tend to cut stories down to their barest essences, and they allow the director and adapting writers to explore their own themes. "So why not give 'em a go?" I wondered.

Sometimes I wish I didn't just go with every thought that pops into my head. As with the first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone -- I will never understand why American publishers changed the title from the original Philosopher's -- churns out all the mythology-establishing exposition needed to launch a franchise, and it gets so bogged down in telling us about this incredible alternate world that it never bothers to take advantage of the properties of film and actually show us.

Oh, there is Computer-Generated Imagery aplenty, but too often characters describe Hogwarts' splendor as they quickly whisk through the scene, as if to outrun budget limitations. Then again, $125 million should have gone a long way since epic action pieces don't really enter the series until the fourth book, so they really could have fleshed things out a bit if only they just cut the sodding thing down some.

Oh my God, now I know why I liked this as a 12-year-old back in November 2001: they didn't leave out a goddamn scene. There's a false perception among the fans of any piece of literature on its way to the big screen that the movie's quality is directly proportionate to how rigidly it follows every scene, every line even, of the book. This is, of course, utter hogwash: where some films work wondrously for adhering to the author's vision (No Country for Old Men, which is almost certain to go down as the best film of the decade), many of the best deviate notably from the narrative and even themes of the source to explore new territory (The Shining, Ran). Director Chris Columbus and screenwriter Steve Kloves are too afraid of angering children to take any chances.

I mean, I'm so confident that people are aware enough of the phenomenon that was Harry Potter that I haven't even gotten down to the plot yet; do you really need me to? Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), an orphaned lad sent to live with his aunt and uncle after surviving an attack by the dreaded Lord Voldemort, is abused and mistreated by his guardians. On his 11th birthday, a giant, Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane) finds him and reveals that Harry is a wizard and shall attend Hogwarts, the finest magical institution in the world. Soon, we discover that Harry is the biggest celebrity in the magic world, simply for surviving Voldemort's attack.

On the way to his new school and life, he befriends Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint), the second youngest member of a seemingly endless family, and Hermione Granger (Emma Watson), a book-smart Muggle-born who knows more about magic in her first year than is mentally possible. None of these kids really has a grasp on the characters yet, what with Radcliffe's inability to convey any sense of rage, or pain or anything other than a dopey grin, really. And that's nothing compared to Watson delivering every line like she just got done running three miles, or her distracting emphasis on any word starting with an 'h.' They lack charisma at this juncture, which is an unfair thing to criticize in a child, but they're meant to carry the film.

To take the weight off of them, Columbus assembled a cast comprising some of the finest British actors in the biz, from Maggie Smith (Gryffindor professor McGonagall) to the aforementioned Coltrane to Richard Harris (Albus Dumbledore). Such a team could carry just about any movie, but Columbus never features any of them prominently enough to let them pick up the slack. Alan Rickman is a good choice for the venomous Severus Snape, but it will be a few films before he pours into the role with the oily bitterness it requires. Ian Hart's role as villain Professor Quirrell is, by nature of the novel, so underwritten that he cannot make an impression, and the final reveal of his "better half" is undone by some dodgy CG.

That weak animation also hurts some of the better sequences of the film, chiefly the Quidditch match. Quidditch rapidly became such an annoying distraction in the books that Rowling relegated it to the background starting with the fourth book, but it once was a fun break from stories that were light enough to support the aside. Here, it's the most exhilarating moment of the film, which reflects on the tepid direction of the final gauntlet of challenges protecting the Philosopher's Stone and Columbus' inability to fill them with any sense of tension or even excitement. So, it's up to the Quidditch game, but the animation is choppy and you can practically see the green screen behind the actors on their broomsticks. Still, it carries a bit of dramatic heft to it, and I actually found myself caring about the outcome even though a) I knew what would happen and b) I don't even care about real sports.

Elsewhere, though, the script is so concerned with just throwing every single narrative event of the novel on the screen, only to leave out what minimal character growth existed. I understand that the novel was all about setting up the sandbox in which these characters played, but as that's the case, the film hardly needs to be 2-1/2 hours long. It almost feels like five episodes of the first season of Harry Potter: The Series than a proper film, making the whole thing more of a chore than an escapist fantasy.

That dogmatic adherence to Rowling's writing means that the same contrivances of the book now appear on-screen: Harry, who must wear glasses because of weak eyesight, becomes "the youngest player in a century," and as the Seeker no less. How can someone who needs corrective lenses somehow see a tiny, darting ball that becomes entirely invisible if it moves more than six feet away from your face? For that matter, is there not a spell that has a similar effect to eye surgery? A number of older wizards wear spectacles as well; this is a bigger logic gap than Captain Picard's baldness in the future of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Furthermore, McGonagall actually buys Harry the finest broom on the market so he can bring home the Cup? Isn't that kind of like a football coach bribing his star players?

These are nitpicks, of course, more about the book than the film, and it's not like Columbus could alter Harry's already iconic look. But it's the director's responsibility to shift my focus away from the minutiae and contrivances, especially in a light-hearted romp such as this. Starting with the third installment, the series took a firm left into young adult literature from of children's books, but the first two are all about the spectacle. What a shame that Columbus and Kloves so utterly fail to convey any of it.