The Harry Potter Saga: A Retrospective

I have been anticipating this week for a while now, as I have realized I have yet to review a film from an incredibly popular franchise of which I am a vehement fan. This Friday’s release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 provides me this opportunity, and because of this I am both excited and anxious. It may be impossible to approach such a film from a critical perspective, because I’ve grown up with these characters both on the page and the screen, and now we reach the beginning of the series’ film conclusion. How excited am I? Let’s just say I will be attending a midnight screening of Deathly Hallows, and I am far more excited than anyone my age should be about seeing a movie depicting a teenage boy that goes to wizard school.

I was so young when I first came upon the Harry Potter books that my introduction to them remains fuzzy. I think I was in third or fourth grade when Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone was first placed in my hands, courtesy of the Mentor Public Library in (you guessed it) Mentor, Ohio. I was engrossed by this story about a young boy named Harry and his friends Ron and (as I pronounced it before the movie came out) Her-MOYNE. J.K. Rowling created a fantasy-land so terribly vivid that I could see myself trotting across the campus of Hogwarts myself. I began to read each book, and I noticed they got progressively longer, but never overwhelming, until…

HOLY LIVING MOTHER OF GOD.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, as I recall, could kill a man if dropped upon his head. The Wikipedia page lists the number of pages at 734, and for a lowly elementary school student this was akin to climbing Everest with nothing put a couple of paperclips. The Kid Who Ran for President did not prepare me to read such a behemoth, and it took me several dog years to finish Goblet of Fire. But when I did, oh, did I rejoice. Sure, the next book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was even longer, but once I got through Goblet of Fire I could take on the world. Bring it, Atlas Shrugged!

However, between Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix there was a 3-year hiatus of sorts. In that time, our dear friends in Hollywood decided to adapt the books into feature films. If this were to happen now, I would have little faith, but my eleven-year-old non-cynical self was peeing with anticipation with the announcement. To me, the decision that Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone would be directed by the guy who did Home Alone and Mrs. Doubtfire was TERRIFIC news. I loved those movies, how could I hate these? They could have cast Will Smith as Ron Weasley and I’d have been on board.

As such, when I went to see Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone my innocent little mind was blown away. There the magical world of Hogwarts was, right in front of my eyes! They’re playing Quidditch! It’s pronounced Her-MY-oh-nee! The discoveries were endless! This film could do no wrong! The exact number of times I saw Sorcerer’s Stone in theaters is uncertain, but for sure it was no less than twice. I was an addict.

Imagine my excitement when one year later, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was released. There it all was again! Now with a giant snake! Oh, joy to the world, the Lord is come! To me, these two films were perfect, as they delivered exactly what I wanted in exactly the package I wanted it in. They were doggedly faithful to the source material, and at an age when “artistic license” was a term I was not familiar with, this was top-of-the-line.

It is with a heavy heart that I now must put on my Mr. Cynical Grumpy Gills hat and look at these first two films objectively. The good news is: I think they performed their function exactly as was required of them, but I try to imagine a world in which I saw them without any knowledge of the Harry Potter universe. Would I have been as willing to go along with it all? Perhaps to an outsider this movie would seem lacking in several areas, yet those who had read the books were able to fill in the cracks themselves. That said, Sorcerer’s Stone is a fine piece of filmmaking that brilliantly realized the universe. The second felt a bit like a retread, but still passes as solid entertainment. However, in my childhood, my reaction was the following: WOW!

After Chamber of Secrets, Chris Columbus surrendered the director’s chair, and he went on to direct the god-awful Rent and such prestigious fare as I Love You, Beth Cooper. To direct the third film in the franchise, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, (by the way, the fact that Microsoft Word recognizes the word “Azkaban” blows my mind) the studio brought in Alfonso Cuarón. Before Prisoner of Azkaban, he was best known for the foreign film Y tu mama también, which examines two teenage boys on a journey of sexual discovery which leads them to realize their homoerotic desires. Alohomora, pass the popcorn!

That said, with the addition of Cuarón the Harry Potter films began to gain their own identity. To this day I feel Prisoner of Azkaban is a mixed bag of sorts, but Cuarón hits the emotional moments harder than Columbus ever did. What Columbus did was set the table, and he even folded the napkins nice and pretty. However, Cuarón came in and took it from there. With Azkaban, we finally delved into the cracks of the world that Columbus established.

My favorite film in the series, personally, is Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Directed by Mike Newell, who gave us Four Weddings and a Funeral (!), the film balances the character moments with the action just about flawlessly. Most impressively, it tells the story just about flawlessly, and sends everything unnecessary into the waste basket. It was here the films, in a way, began to surpass the books: they told the stories more economically.

But this guy... his career's going nowhere.

Don’t get me wrong, the Harry Potter books remained compulsively readable right to the end. My problem is that after a while Rowling seemed to throw in a bunch of side junk that just didn’t belong there. Order of the Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince were mostly built around key character deaths, and could have easily been combined into one book. The problem is that Rowling committed herself to seven books, and she spent much of the fifth and sixth spinning her wheels a bit more than normal.

The respective films also suffered as a result, despite the fact they were probably as good as they possibly could be. Throughout Order of the Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince there was the feeling that we were stuck in a middle ground. As with the books, they could have been combined into one great movie, but instead we got two good films.

One of the great joys of the Harry Potter films has been watching these characters grow up, and to people my age they grew up right alongside us. Looking at the likes of Daniel Radcliffe now, it’s amazing once he was a little pipsqueak who could barely muster up the courage to say “I’m Harry… Harry Potter”. As the series went on, the voices dropped, hair grew in mysterious places, and now we come out the other end with three full-fledged actors.

Admit it: this freaks you out.

I spend a lot of time wondering if Radcliffe and company felt the pressure when it all started. If a grown man is cast as James Bond, one of his first thoughts is likely “Wait a second. I’ve just been cast as James Bond. What have I gotten myself into?” In contrast, if an 11-year-old kid is cast as Harry Potter, he’s probably jumping out of his underpants in joy. This wonderful naiveté helped the series get started, and as a result what has been accomplished is nothing short of remarkable.

Despite my occasional (and minor) quibbles, not a single one of the Harry Potter films can be described as anything close to “bad”. To maintain such a high level of quality and to retain all of the cast members across all these years is impressive. When the series started, even my squeaky little pre-pubescent self was convinced there was no way all these kids would star in each and every film. I have been gloriously proven wrong.

I have mentioned that the books grew weaker as they went on, and while I believe this, I also believe Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows represented a fantastic return to form. Rowling wrapped up the story definitively and in a satisfying way, and when I closed the book I was happy that above all I felt I had not been wasting my time the last 10+ years, even in spite of the stinky limburger that is the epilogue.

It all begins to come to an end with the release of Deathly Hallows: Part 1, and at long last the Harry Potter series will be laid to rest (almost). Admittedly, part of my excitement is the anticipation of finally ending it all, but at the same time I’ll be sad to see it go. I’ve had my obsessions over the years, but few define my childhood/adolescence better than the story of Harry Potter. Today I no longer am obsessed with the series like I was back in the day, but to deny the influence the Harry Potter books and films have had on my pop culture life would be like turning my back on my family. When all is said and done with the final installment next summer, I hope we will be able to look back upon the Harry Potter books and films as one of the most impressive cultural accomplishments of our time.

MY MEANINGLESS RATINGS:

Sorcerer’s Stone: 3.5/4

Chamber of Secrets: 3/4

Prisoner of Azkaban: 3/4

Goblet of Fire: 4/4

Order of the Phoenix: 3.5/4

Half-Blood Prince: 3/4

My review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 will be online during the day on Friday. Follow me on Twitter (@MattKraus813) so you may know the exact moment.