A combination of computer graphics, detailed sets, and real-life locations gives the film the authenticity its fans expect.
Filling out the remainder of the major roles are Alan Rickman as the ominous Professor Severus Snape; Ian Hart as the inconspicuous Professor Quirrell; John Hurt as Mr. Ollivander; Zoë Wanamaker as Madame Hooch; Richard Griffiths and Fiona Shaw as Uncle Vernon Dursley and his wife, Aunt Petunia Evans Dursley, the Muggles who raise Potter; and Harry Melling as the Dursley's horribly bratty, spoiled child, Dudley Dursley. The director, Chris Columbus, had to keep all of these people and events flying in the air with the skill of a circus juggler, and he is generally up to the task. To blame him for any flatness in the final product might be unfair, given that his job was primarily to translate every moment in the book to the screen. He undoubtedly did his best with what the script offered, but he didn't take many liberties to be overly inventive or innovative.
Which brings us to the "look" of the movie, where we see its greatest strengths. A combination of computer graphics, detailed sets, and real-life locations gives the film the authenticity its fans expect. Unquestionably, the most important set piece is Hogwarts, and it comes off splendidly. Our introduction to the ancient school is at night, after a spooky supernatural train ride to somewhere in another dimension. Here, the film's huge budget proves its worth as footage of real castles intertwines with matte shots and computer animation to create a convincingly portentous yet wholly magical place--dark and forbidding yet endlessly fascinating, warm, and comforting. Likewise, the forests, the shops, the alleyways, even Hagrid's hut have an imaginative, inviting, fairy-tale enchantment about them. It isn't the film's fault that the settings haven't the scope or variety of those in "The Lord of the Rings," but "Potter" again does the best with what it's got.
Video:
The HD DVD's 1080, VC-1 encoded, widescreen reproduction captures the film's 2.40:1 aspect ratio nicely, measuring approximately 2.25:1 across my television, given its small degree of overscan. The image is a tad softer than that of the newer "Order of the Phoenix," although it still looks fine. Colors are bright in daylight sequences, the tiniest bit duller in others, and shadow detail is well captured at night and in dimly lit scenes. Flesh tones are particularly natural, although there is bit of glassiness now and then. There is also a touch of light grain one notices throughout, undoubtedly a condition of the original print.
Audio:
The WB engineers provide two audio choices on this HD DVD: Dolby TrueHD 5.1 and Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 EX, both of them about everything you could want. Like the regular Dolby Digital 5.1 track on the standard-def disc, the frequency and dynamic ranges in TrueHD and DD+ are extremely wide, and the bass thunders deeply when the situations calls for it. The surround channels add a pleasant ambient bloom to the musical score and enhance one's enjoyment of storms, rain, wind, and creepy noises in the night. I loved the episode with the owls and the letters early on. It is, however, in the disc's transient attacks--the quick, sharp sounds--that the DD+ and to an even greater extent the TrueHD tracks come into their own. They are crisper and more forceful than ever, reproducing the sounds of gunshots, lightning bolts, and thunder with commendable realism.
Extras:
This is one of those HD DVDs where the extras (all in standard definition) are mostly different from the ones on the special-edition, two-disc set. First up on the HD DVD is a sixteen-minute featurette called "Capturing the Stone: Casting and Bringing the Novel to Life," about sixteen minutes long in which the producer, the director, the screenwriter, and the production designer give us their thoughts on the making of this first film installment in the series. Next up is a very brief (less than a minute) glimpse at the "Ghosts of Hogwarts," basically clips of the various movie spirits. Then there's something more substantial, a "Yearbook of Character Clips" from which you can choose among sixteen of the film's characters and watch them in excerpts from the film. This can add up to a goodly amount of time as the feature devotes up to eight or ten minutes to each character. After that are two more very brief segments, again less than a minute each: "Lessons in Quidditch" and "What It Takes to Hatch a Dragon Egg." After that, you might find the seven additional scenes fun. They add up to about nine minutes, some of them quite fascinating. Of curiosity, if nothing else, is the "Around the World Multi-language Clip," where you can see and hear the same one-minute scene done up in eight different languages. Finally, there are two trailers, one a teaser trailer and the other a theatrical trailer.
The bonuses conclude with thirty-five scene selections; English and Spanish spoken languages
English and Spanish subtitles; English captions for the hearing impaired; and as always with a Warner Bros. HD DVD, pop-up menus, bookmarks, a zoom-and-pan feature, a guide to elapsed time, and an Elite Red HD case.
Parting Thoughts:
I recall coming out of the motion picture theater after first seeing "The Sorcerer's Stone" and thinking, "It's cute, I liked it, but it's not quite what I had hoped for." There wasn't, for instance, the sense of joy, awe, and elation I experienced after watching "LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring" a month or so later. No, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" may not meet everyone's expectations, particularly adults who are looking for something less staid, less wooden, less grounded in the here and now. Despite the film's glorious special effects and dead-on characters and imagery, older viewers may find the movie never seems fully to come to life. Nonetheless, it is a delightful fantasy for children, and on the strength of its high-definition graphics and lossless TrueHD sound alone, I can easily recommended it to anyone. If you've already read the book, the movie is self-recommending in any case.
Which brings us to the "look" of the movie, where we see its greatest strengths. A combination of computer graphics, detailed sets, and real-life locations gives the film the authenticity its fans expect. Unquestionably, the most important set piece is Hogwarts, and it comes off splendidly. Our introduction to the ancient school is at night, after a spooky supernatural train ride to somewhere in another dimension. Here, the film's huge budget proves its worth as footage of real castles intertwines with matte shots and computer animation to create a convincingly portentous yet wholly magical place--dark and forbidding yet endlessly fascinating, warm, and comforting. Likewise, the forests, the shops, the alleyways, even Hagrid's hut have an imaginative, inviting, fairy-tale enchantment about them. It isn't the film's fault that the settings haven't the scope or variety of those in "The Lord of the Rings," but "Potter" again does the best with what it's got.
Video:
The HD DVD's 1080, VC-1 encoded, widescreen reproduction captures the film's 2.40:1 aspect ratio nicely, measuring approximately 2.25:1 across my television, given its small degree of overscan. The image is a tad softer than that of the newer "Order of the Phoenix," although it still looks fine. Colors are bright in daylight sequences, the tiniest bit duller in others, and shadow detail is well captured at night and in dimly lit scenes. Flesh tones are particularly natural, although there is bit of glassiness now and then. There is also a touch of light grain one notices throughout, undoubtedly a condition of the original print.
Audio:
The WB engineers provide two audio choices on this HD DVD: Dolby TrueHD 5.1 and Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 EX, both of them about everything you could want. Like the regular Dolby Digital 5.1 track on the standard-def disc, the frequency and dynamic ranges in TrueHD and DD+ are extremely wide, and the bass thunders deeply when the situations calls for it. The surround channels add a pleasant ambient bloom to the musical score and enhance one's enjoyment of storms, rain, wind, and creepy noises in the night. I loved the episode with the owls and the letters early on. It is, however, in the disc's transient attacks--the quick, sharp sounds--that the DD+ and to an even greater extent the TrueHD tracks come into their own. They are crisper and more forceful than ever, reproducing the sounds of gunshots, lightning bolts, and thunder with commendable realism.
Extras:
This is one of those HD DVDs where the extras (all in standard definition) are mostly different from the ones on the special-edition, two-disc set. First up on the HD DVD is a sixteen-minute featurette called "Capturing the Stone: Casting and Bringing the Novel to Life," about sixteen minutes long in which the producer, the director, the screenwriter, and the production designer give us their thoughts on the making of this first film installment in the series. Next up is a very brief (less than a minute) glimpse at the "Ghosts of Hogwarts," basically clips of the various movie spirits. Then there's something more substantial, a "Yearbook of Character Clips" from which you can choose among sixteen of the film's characters and watch them in excerpts from the film. This can add up to a goodly amount of time as the feature devotes up to eight or ten minutes to each character. After that are two more very brief segments, again less than a minute each: "Lessons in Quidditch" and "What It Takes to Hatch a Dragon Egg." After that, you might find the seven additional scenes fun. They add up to about nine minutes, some of them quite fascinating. Of curiosity, if nothing else, is the "Around the World Multi-language Clip," where you can see and hear the same one-minute scene done up in eight different languages. Finally, there are two trailers, one a teaser trailer and the other a theatrical trailer.
The bonuses conclude with thirty-five scene selections; English and Spanish spoken languages
English and Spanish subtitles; English captions for the hearing impaired; and as always with a Warner Bros. HD DVD, pop-up menus, bookmarks, a zoom-and-pan feature, a guide to elapsed time, and an Elite Red HD case.
Parting Thoughts:
I recall coming out of the motion picture theater after first seeing "The Sorcerer's Stone" and thinking, "It's cute, I liked it, but it's not quite what I had hoped for." There wasn't, for instance, the sense of joy, awe, and elation I experienced after watching "LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring" a month or so later. No, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" may not meet everyone's expectations, particularly adults who are looking for something less staid, less wooden, less grounded in the here and now. Despite the film's glorious special effects and dead-on characters and imagery, older viewers may find the movie never seems fully to come to life. Nonetheless, it is a delightful fantasy for children, and on the strength of its high-definition graphics and lossless TrueHD sound alone, I can easily recommended it to anyone. If you've already read the book, the movie is self-recommending in any case.
Average user rating (1-5):
[release]22519[/release]