Spelling S-U-C-C-E-S-S

  MANDY WHITING Police block off the street in front of the
Fox theater in Westwood for the premiere of "Harry Potter and the
Sorcerer’s stone" on Wednesday.

By Mary Williams
Daily Bruin Senior Staff

It was the daunting task of screenwriter Steven Kloves
(“Wonder Boys”) and director Chris Columbus
(“Bicentennial Man”) to translate the beloved book
“Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” to the
screen. Sadly, nothing can quite compare to the original, although
this movie makes a valiant effort.

Admirers of J.K. Rowling’s enormously successful series
will be disappointed by the film version, which, while it was
well-cast and translated the plot of the book faithfully, falls
short of the humor and, to use an overused word, magic of the
book.

Kloves and Columbus must have felt the pressure to produce a
work that satisfied the millions of avid Harry Potter readers.
Their efforts show in the script, which thankfully recreated much
of the plot directly. The casting reflected the descriptions in the
book, so that the characters looked much like readers imagined
them. Hogwarts, with its moving staircases and ever-changing
paintings, is also a good re-creation of the book’s
images.

Alan Rickman as Professor Severus Snape is particularly well
cast. His low, menacing voice and dour expressions are perfect for
the role, although it doesn’t hurt that the man is a talented
actor as well.

A potential casting concern was the roles of the children.
Poorly chosen child actors could easily have made the movie hard to
watch, especially considering that the children have far more
screentime than veterans like Rickman. Fortunately, the
performances were strong as a whole. Daniel Radcliffe as the title
character and newcomer Emma Watson as Hermione Granger showed
particular talent.

A great deal of money must have been spent on special effects,
and with impressive results. The vividly described settings of
Diagon Alley and Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry were
brought to life in the film version, with the crooked buildings and
dark passageways intact.

Basically, the creators of the film version did everything
right. So why is it that the movie didn’t live up to the
book?

First of all, the book was more than just the plot. The detailed
and multi-layered characters and the humor instilled by Rowling
didn’t make it to the film version.

Characters like Snape, complex in the book, were more
one-dimensional in the movie. Also, the eccentricities of each of
the classes, the shops in Diagon Alley and the rest of the faculty
were less pronounced in the film.

Unfortunately, faithfulness to the story replaced the little
details that attracted so many readers, adults and children alike,
to the original. The film felt like a Cliff’s Notes version
of the book, showing exactly what happens but not imbuing the
viewer with a real sense of the atmosphere.

Of course, had Kloves altered the story to allow more time for
dialogue and detail, avid readers would have undoubtedly objected.
It was a no-win situation.

So much about this film was technically right, but the overall
feel was unsatisfactory. Most likely, though, no film version would
have been both true to the book in plot and warmth, and this is
probably as close as any could come. It’s too bad that in
this case, it’s not quite enough.