By Ethan Johnson
November 22, 2001
We took the plunge and saw the new Harry Potter movie. Then we went bananas and bought all of the books. The books are better. Either way, JK Rowling is a stinkin' millionaire.
The Movie
I'd usually reserve this for my At The Movies columns, however we're dealing with a cultural phenomenon here.
This fact became frighteningly obvious as I bought tickets for the 10am showing on the Sunday of opening weekend. We walked into the theatre and it was reasonably empty. Great planning on my part, I thought richly as we settled into our seats. After all, this is Texas, and it is Sunday, and what God-fearing Texan is going to skip church for Harry Potter?
Pretty much all of them, I soon discovered. People streamed into the theatre like ants at a picnic. Mar turned to me in horror and said, "do you think this place will be sold out?" I didn't want to believe that the possibility existed, however the steady torrent of bodies clutching popcorn and drinks seemed to have no end.
At long last, the movie began. Correction, the projector started showing pictures on the movie screen. 20 minutes of commercials(!) and previews. 20 minutes! In fact, the barrage was so obnoxious that no sooner did I check my watch and determined how long it had dragged on, when Mar turned to me and said authoritatively, "20 minutes of commercials and previews." Great minds think alike.
I'm not one of those jerks who prattles on about the movie frame by frame and tells you the ending like lots of other ding-a-lings I've seen online; the ones that get to see the advance showing in Nepal and come back and say "the ending sucked when _______."
What I will say about the movie is that it was good, but not great. There's some missing element to the film that prevents it from achieving 3 or 4-star status, and receiving the "oh my God we are so buying this on deeveedee" award. Mr. Cranky seemed to pick up on this as well, and his theory was that it lacked heart. This could be true. 2 screenings of Monsters, Inc. later, and I still want to infiltrate Pixar and make off with the test reel. One screening of Harry Potter, and my reaction was to shrug and go back to finishing the first book, which I had read exactly halfway before seeing the movie.
The movie was remarkably "true" to the book, nearly to a fault. In the first half of the movie (of which I had a clear reference point), it was so true to the book that it seemed forced. The actors seemed as though they were reciting lines at gunpoint in places. Then in the 2nd half, when "liberties" were taken with the material, it seemed "looser". It made me wish the whole thing could have been like that.
The Books
Though written on the 6th Grade level, they really grew on me, and fast. Mar & I are plowing through the set faster than you can say "Quidditch". Basically Harry Potter can be boiled down to "The Hardy Boys meets Dungeons & Dragons." I would say Encyclopedia Brown, however he always knew the answer to whatever dilemma vexed everyone else. Harry Potter is along for the ride with the rest of us.
I guess my attraction to the books is the way that they blend the mysterious life of "magical folk" with the more mundane aspects of our usual day-to-day goings on. But the clever twist is that "magical folk" have day-to-day lives as well, just, differently. Wizards still have garden pests, but they walk & talk. Wizards have books about monsters, but the book about monsters is itself a monster. JK Rowling, author of the series, really seems to go out of her way to dream up bizarro stuff for every book, each topping the last. And JK Rowling is to the red herring what Mark Twain was to the Mississippi River.
And how can you ever go wrong with bathroom humor?
Observations
"Purists" have decried 2 things about the Harry Potter juggernaut: One, that there's a movie (gasp!), and two, that there are (double gasp!) pictures at the beginning of each chapter. Oh, wurra wurra! Whatever are we to do?
The purists claim that pictures (moving or otherwise) ruin our imagination and force us to accept the vision of the various characters & places in the book that either the illustrator or filmmakers have foisted off on us. I disagree. The illustrations in the book really don't do much to shape my mental picture of what's happening in the story, any more than a photo of a lone tape dispenser depicts an entire office. And having seen the movie, I found the casting to be well done for the movie, however I still have a different mental picture of say, Professor Snape than Hollywood tried to foist off on me. Word to the purists: Go jump in a lake.
I'm noticing that the lines are drawn between religious zealotry and freedom of speech here in the real world. Time and time again, I have found web sites dripping with dire warnings about being cast into the deepest circle in Hell for so much as glancing at the movie poster, for Harry Potter is a wizard! And celebrates Christmas...without Jesus! And turns his back on almighty God to perform his wicked witchcraft at every available opportunity! And kids who read Harry Potter books by association turn then to Wicca, drugs, and alternative lifestyles!
In fact, one particular site emphatically warned not to take their kids to see the movie nor read even one word of the books, for fear of their mortal soul. They rattled off a multitude of perceived sins, each taking "points" away from its value, and in the final analysis Harry Potter was deemed to be a movie where Satan himself will sell you the popcorn and show you to your seat.
Conclusion
I wondered what that extreme Christian movie review site's idea of a "great movie" was. One category they "ding" movies for is "wanton violence". They dinged Monsters, Inc. for the scene where Mike Wazowski, believing children to have the power to kill monsters with their touch, sprays disinfectant in his eye after it is touched by a 3 year-old girl. Mar & I assumed that perhaps the Story of Jesus would be the movie they could agree on as being the pinnacle of wholesomeness. Bear in mind, that even if the sinner is caught & punished, the mere fact that sin ever occurred in the first place costs movies points in their rating system.
So let's see, Jesus: Befriends a prostitute (ding), defends a sinner from receiving a stoning (ding for the threat of there being a stoning in the first place), gets flogged on the way to the cross (ding), gets crucified with nails (ding), gets speared through the heart by a Roman guard (ding), drives the money-changers out of the temple (ding, for money-changers being there in the first place).
Well, seeing how unwholesome that story is shaping up, I think I'll go back to enjoying the fictional but interesting stories of Harry Potter, boy wizard. <EM>
