"Harry Potter" Reviews - Books AND Movies

“Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.” Read it. Watch it.
“Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.” Read it. Watch it.
“Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.” Read it. Watch it.
“Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.” Read it. Watch it.
“Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.” Read it.
“Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince.” I haven’t read it yet, but read it.
“Harry Potter and the…” Wait for it.

Is it really that simple? In this man’s opinion: yes.

But don’t fret, I’ll give you a bit more. These books take you back to when you were a kid growing up, and bring all of your growing pains to life as magical creatures, horrible relatives, crazy teachers, and evil enemies. And they give you the powerful magical abilities you always wished you had to tackle it all. You see a bit of yourself in Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasley as they struggle to get through adolescence alive. Or maybe you see a bit of yourself in Draco Malfoy and his goons. Perhaps you even see your friends in there, too. Or your parents and teachers in Professor Dumbledore. Or Snape. Or, gasp, Lord Voldemort. Either way, these books suck you in and spit you out several days later once you’ve pored over their last lines. What about the movies? Well, they only steal a few hours of your time. Either way, you won’t be wishing for that time back as so often happens these days. Besides, you’d just waste it anyway.

“Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” finds young Harry Potter living a life of misery with his aunt and uncle, and their spoiled son, Dudley. Until he finds out he’s a wizard. And not just any wizard, mind you. No, he’s a famous wizard who brought down the most feared wizard of them all: Lord Voldemort. And now it’s time for him to do it again. But first he has to go back to school. And not just any school. No, he has to go to Hogwart’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, led by the awe-inspiring Albus Dumbledore, where he’ll meet all sorts of new friends, and new enemies. Someone’s out to get the fabled Sorcerer’s Stone, which can grant immortality to those that posses it. It’s up to Harry and his friends, with help (and hindrance) from his teachers along the way, to put an end to the evil plot.

“Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” returns Harry to Hogwart’s to begin his second year in learning to become a powerful wizard. But something is attacking the students, leaving them petrified. And mysterious warnings are being written on the walls in blood about the Chamber of Secrets being opened. It’s only a matter of time until someone is killed, just as it happened fifty years ago the last time the chamber was opened. Once again it’s up to Harry, Ron, and Hermione to take matters into their own hands and put a stop to things. But it won’t be easy, not since everyone thinks it’s Harry that’s behind it all!

In “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” we return to Harry’s third year at Hogwart’s, and there is a dangerous criminal on the loose. Sirius Black has escaped from Azkaban, where he was imprisoned years ago for heinous crimes committed against the wizarding community and muggles alike. Guess who he’s after? That’s right: Harry Potter. Seems Black went down right after Lord Voldemort and he wants revenge. But what aren’t his teachers telling him? And what other secrets are they hiding? Well, Harry and the gang are about to find out. Hopefully they’re up to the challenge.

The fourth installment in this great series, “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” delivers us back to Hogwart’s in Harry’s fourth year, where the popular game of Quidditch has been cancelled for the season to make room for the famous Tri-Wizard Tournament. This tournament, recently reinstated after many years, pits champions from each of three wizarding schools (what, you didn’t think Hogwart’s was the only one, did you?) against each other for the famous prize: the Tri-Wizard Cup. It's up to the Goblet of Fire to decide who competes, and guess who’s name has been added to the list? That’s right: Harry Potter. Through it all Lord Voldemort’s Death Eaters are once again showing themselves, and Voldemort himself is rumored to be gaining power. What’s he up to? And how will Harry stop him this time?

“Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” finds Harry, now in his fifth year, struggling with school, AND the fact that Voldemort has returned to human form. Problem is, nobody believes him, even with Dumbledore on his side. How is he to fight Voldemort on his own? Well, he isn’t. The Order of the Phoenix is there to help. Good thing, too, because nobody else is. Not even the Ministry of Magic, who has been fighting to oust Harry, Dumbledore, and many of his friends and teachers from Hogwart’s. And when Harry starts dreaming about Voldemort and his activities, well, nothing good can come of that, now can it?

So, how do the movies compare? Quite well, actually. The persons and places in the book come to life on the big screen exactly as you would have imagined them. Once you get over the fact that the kids are aging awfully fast, that is. Minor detail, really. The director(s) seem to have simple lifted the script straight from the pages of each book, with rare exceptions, and few changes or omissions. I will say, however, that as each book has become longer, more and more of it is left out of the movie. There’s only so much you can cram into two and a half hours. I’d say the first book, which was somewhere around two hundred pages, seemed about the ideal length to fit everything into the movie, so you won’t notice much missing there. But you will definitely notice things missing from there on. However they really don’t seem to be terribly important things. And it makes it fun, having read the books, to note the differences and omissions, sort of the way you did with the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. On another note, you may notice that the movies don’t give you the sense of time that the books did. In the books, each spanned an entire year. You witnessed classes, weekend trips, studying for exams, and other such moments. In the movies, you just don't have that. I suppose that's the first and most obvious thing to go when planning a movie. But that did allow the movies to add a bit more suspense. Quite frankly I can’t wait for the next ones to hit the big screen, and for the last book to hit the bookstands. Sign me up.