Rating: 
Summary: Harry Wows 'Em Again
Review: I ought to say, "wows 'em for the first time"--you don't need to have read the books to enjoy the film (I hadn't, though after seeing it I went out and bought #1 and #3 (#2 being OS at my bookstore)). I haven't been so caught up in a movie's world since the first STAR WARS of venerable memory. The cast, except *just per-haps* for the theatrically glowering Rickman, is splendid, the settings are gorgeous, and oh, the SFX! The quidditch match alone is worth the price. Some reviewers take Columbus and his screenwriters to task for not following the book exactly, but I think they've improved upon it. The means by which Harry and his pals first happen upon Fluffy the three-headed dog, for example: instead of a mischievous poltergeist, it's moving stairways that land them in the forbidden corridor--visually far more delightful. And the scene in which Harry and Ron play "wizard chess" with pieces that bash each other foreshadows the full-size game perfectly. On the other hand, where they *have* remained faithful to the original, they've done so, for the most part, with exactitude. My gripes are very minor: for example, I would have liked a brief scene in which the several Weasley brothers were formally introduced to Harry (there is one in the book, but in the movie I didn't realize Ron had brothers till I saw their names in the cast roll). This is definitely a movie for the whole family, though the smallest ones *may* find Fluffy, Hagrid, Lord Voldemort, and the chess game scary. And having been through a rather stressful three weeks the first time I saw it (in the theater), I found it to be just the remedy I needed. For a couple of hours I could completely forget what had been turning my life upside down, and worry about whether Harry was going to fall off his broom when *it* did! If I could give this video *ten* stars, I would. It belongs in every family collection.
Rating:
Summary: A Magical Tale
Review: Even if you didn't read the book, this movie is still great. It is great for kids to adults. Its a movie the whole family will enjoy. Although, some material in it may be inappropriate for little children, as there are some scary moments in it. I think its probably best for 8 and up. Otherwise, its a great movie you will want to watch over and over again. It's also got some great behind the scenes special features. This makes a great gift.
Rating:
Summary: Harry Potter is a great movie!
Review: This movie is so awesome. It is exciting, and way cool. I had read the book twice before seeing this movie, and they are both really good. I would totally reccomend the book, too, but for people (like me) that don't really like spending their free time reading, the movie gives you a good idea of the story. This is a really awesome movie. The special effects are way cool, and the casting is totally perfect! This is a great movie to see. And, on this DVD, you could watch it again and again! Even if you're an adult, you should still see this movie. People who say Harry Potter is for kids must have never actually seen or read Harry Potter. Some of the stuff in this movie MIGHT scare kids, but, hey, it just makes the movie more exciting to have some action in it. Anyway, this is a great movie, and I totally recommend it, no matter how old you are, or wether you like or dislike the books.
Rating:
Summary: The Books are Best, But the DVD is really great!
Review: Magic, magic, magic, oh my! A delightful transport to the wonderful new world created by Ms. Rowlings. Thank her and the movie producers and stars for simply marvelous entertainment for a couple of hours. Earnestly awaiting book #5, and can't wait until "Chamber of Secrets" comes out on DVD.
Rating: 
Summary: Could have been a lot better
Review: I have read the book at least ten times so I know most of the sayings. Let me tell you there were probaly 5 sayings identical to the book. It had half edited scenes which became annoying and it added goofy scenes which made no point. The only reason I gave this 2 stars instead of 1 is because some of the scenes were pretty cool.
Rating:
Summary: Magical! (A Sorcerer's Stone and Chamber of Secrets Review)
Review: I went in to see this film after my friend persuaded me to come along, and came out with a new favorite movie. I just started reading book 1 this month, because I wanted to know what was going on in the movies, but they were really magnificent and I must say, reading the books helps you understand the movie. Nothing is explained in the much anticipated second movie, so you'll need some background knowledge. The second movie, which I saw on the Opening Night, was SO much fun that I even saw it again! The actors and filmmakers had more experience, and therefore resulted in a better movie than the first, in my opinion. Seeing the movie on opening night was a plus, because all the fans attended, clapping, cheering, gasping, and providing enthusiatic responses to the movie. If you didn't like the movie, then it was probably a dull crowd that influenced you. I think you should see it ASAP, because when I saw it the second time (a week later), there were parents and toddlers who really didn't try to enjoy the movie. Anyway, great movie; I was amazed at the special effects and how well the characters were portrayed in the movie. If you didn't like either movie, then you're just being rash, because about 20 songs each were composed by the famous John Williams, and 16,000 kids auditioned for Harry Potter. Not to mention that the 9 minutes of Quidditch took 3 months to plan and 6 months to film!
Rating: 
Summary: Harry Potter and the Remediating Elites
Review: ...I don't know, it's a kid's movie, I guess they get a lot of enjoyment out of it; but what do I think as an adult? I am permitted, am I not? Especially when movies and fad media genre supplant our beleaguered American education system-and we are so inundated by them. Well, we know there's no such thing as magic, and that movies are where the only magic's made...let's see, and there was some other place..where was it? But anyway, there is an innocence, a Bed knobs and Broomsticks appeal to the whole mirth, but I'm an adult, miserable for sure, that spark left me a long time ago, and now I only have my darker dimly glowing embers of churl to churn in this night of hollow evil. Gather'round children, I have a different interpretation... Americans receive from Dr. Chomsky's propaganda filter, a certain measure of what is called psycholinguistic programming. Now what on earth could that be, pray tell? Let's just be honest, at this point in the deluge, its all programming of that nature, a sophisticated interleaving targeting demographic anatomies of wet membranous human development factors in the emergent plight of any human being, of or from what ever background, as this weird world is unfolded before their eyes and ears..over the years..and fed to them with little "spoonfuls of sugar". Willie Wonka tried to show us how people would become divided, fragmented and particlized for cheapened transmissions through the air waves, a fictitious portrait of mankind hanging over our heads, the surrogate and smothering retort that refuses to see reality, and refuses to hear its cries from beneath. Education in Great Britain, the famous boarding schools, academies, Oxford, Trinity, are what's really being metaphorically paralleled into this psycholinguistic media dimension of distractions and misdirections. The places of learning for the elites, from when they were pups...like you dear children...to when they are old, and still philosophizing the tragedy of a world they presume to control and comprehend better than any of us. They are whom we take our orders from, our betters, all neat and uniformed and speaking the Queen's English. But Harry Potter doesn't go to school to learn economics, mathematics, social sciences, he's their to flirt with the black art, the necromancy, to make colored smoke plume from pestle and mortar. Perhaps chemistry, you'd say? I decline to honor that reply, it should be obvious he doesn't learn a thing at Hogwart; he merely learns to take his place in a school pageant of sorts, caricatures and pecking orders that typify people, their kind, their like, and how from very early on we are all indoctrinated to defer to them, measure them, and accord them those artifices of esteem, class, import, capacity, or altogether any worth whatsoever. Harry is role playing for you my dears, and he wants to be sure you Don't understand that knowledge is power, literacy is power, a defensive and critical view is power, not any tinctures or incantations he flips with his wand. But he is flipping a wand, and saying those incantations, he is obscuring the founts of wisdom and making them seem something else isn't he? Well...illusions are what magic acts are all about. And that illusion spun for you, is that your betters are sorcerers, capable of what you are not. Don't even ask, you cannot apply nor afford it. "Know Your Place" That is the most awful thing to hear people say, when after all, they are trying to amuse you, and take your money for it. Know your place behind the ones front and center, or the One front and center, the modern myth of concern for the "idol". This, all movies are about now days. Harry Potter, the book, is an "idol". Brittany Spears, an "idoll". You get my point. There is even a ridiculous program on American tv called, "American Idol". With so much idolatry, superstition and such, we regress to a dependence on that medium, the entertainment media, to set the standard for our enjoyments, rather than go out to find and originate them ourselves, to break from the pack and discover that their charisma is no more valid than anyone else's or our own. That way, you can always laugh when someone tells you, "You're no Harry Potter!" Seems too absurd to conjecture, but one of the favorite illusions of image wrecking spin controllers, is to deny whom they don't like an identity unto their own. This fools the target quarry, and just for a moment, leaves even them wondering why "they're no Harry Potter!" This is all that idolatry really achieves in the end...people harboring behind abstractions and denying who they are or who anybody else is. So...like the good witch Glenda...I'm sprinkling this little snow job on you, to get you to wake up. Remember that Wicked Witch from The Wizard of OZ: " Puppies, we'll make them sleeeeeeepy, sleeeeeeeeeeep puuuupies..." And remember how Dorothy and her trio of anthropomorphized adult constructions, Scarecrow, Tin Man and Lion fell victim to her? Don't fall asleep saturating yourself with the commercial crop of fad and fancy retail sensation. Read a book, read Harry Potter, then read something more grown up. Expand that vocabulary and the view to a world, that even if it lacks the pizzaz of magic acts, is subtly in some respects far more invidious, transmogrified, and darkening. Avoid the obvious conclusions laid out for you like chum, the polarizing filters mass produced and everywhere you look...yes children...even the red ones, the white ones, the blue ones, and the stars. Idolatry...idolatry...and affectation. What would require such distraction...hmmm? Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch iluuuuuusions? "Oh My!" Abracadabraham Lincoln! Go get that broom from areas of doubt or trepidation you feel overpowered by, the ominous and sinister especially. Then clean the cobwebs out of your mind and out of your institutions, educational, governmental, or corporate! We forget how impressionable we are...
Rating:
Summary: Not for people who dislike witchcraft
Review: The theme of this movie re-enforces a magic/witchcraft theme. It is not for a Christian to really show there children since it is contrary to a Christian belief. It has alot of good special effects, but I found my young nieces would be too impressionable with this. Caution.
Rating:
Summary: At first, I thought this movie would be terrible...
Review: One of my only complaints about this movie is the fact that there wasn't as much character development shown by the minor characters (Percy, Fred, and George Weasley, Oliver Wood, Neville Longbottom, Seamus Finnigan) as there were in the books. But the acting was some of the best I've ever seen!! My personal favorite characters in the movie are Vernon Dursley, Professor McGonagall (EXACTLY how I imagined her), Malfoy, Harry Potter (How'd they find a kid who is so good at the part AND who almost perfectly matches the description in the book??!) and especially Ron Weasley. (Rupert Grint is HILARIOUS!...) I didn't enjoy Emma Watson's (Hermione) performance as much as I did in the second movie (She's improving:-). The screenwriters did an excellent job of adapting and staying true to the book. The sets were brilliant too, and it has one of the two best movie soundtracks ever (The other being the Fellowship of the Ring). At first I thought for sure I would dislike this movie, but I was proven wrong. While I think toy companies have gone a bit too far with the t-shirts, bumper stickers, and dolls of Harry Potter characters (Ugh. Who wants their face reproduced by Mattel?) this movie has not overstepped any bounds. The part in the end (Obviously the climatic bloody battle -what fantasy movie doesn't have one?) with Voldemort and Professor Quirrel and Harry still scares the heck out of me.
Rating:
Summary: Close
Review: I enjoyed this movie. The acting was good: especially by Watson, Harris, Radcliffe, and Coltrane but i think it wasn't as good as the book. The second is much beter. Enjoy!
|
