A FINAL WORD ON HARRY POTTER:

The following are two user reviews lifted from yahoo! regarding the second Harry Potter film, "Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secretions..." Oh, I meant "Secrets."

give me my money back. NOW!!!
by fatguy_bob (movies profile) (Jun 8, 2005)
1 of 3 people found this review helpful
what the hell is this crap.It was so bad I rather watch blues cluses.you can call me at 1-800-your-mom.this movie sucks big balls

by totus_08 (movies profile) Nov 16, 2003 9 of 15 people found this review helpful
This movie was better than the first! It had lots of action! The best part was when Harry was fightin the giant snake! Since I liked this one and the first I'll probably like the third and you'll probably like it too!!

You may be wondering why I chose those two Pulitzer Prize level reviews. I did it because I felt it symbolized best the type of person who would even be caught dead watching a film based on a Harry Potter novel, whether they hated it or loved it. What amused me throughout the undeserved success of the franchise was the tendency for those of us who found it be utter crap to descend into arguing with the pseudo-intellects that found it to be great literature.

It was neither great nor literature. It was, instead, the product of a mediocre talent who tapped into the psychology of children at a time when they only thing they were reading was the back of a video game package. Brilliant marketing does not always equal great art. Viewers of "Friends" should know that, but most of them probably don't.

I suppose what bothered me most about the Potter books was the cult that developed around them. If children wanted to read them, I was fine with that because they are still developing their tastes. Adults are a different matter entirely. They should be more well-rounded. They should have the ability to discern by the numbers mediocrity from quality. They should know that entertaining is not enough.

They should.

They don't. Instead of allowing the Potter books to be a childrens' distraction that would hopefully develop their brains into something that will be able to enjoy reading, they got into it as well. Thus massive numbers of soccer moms could be seen reading the bloated non-epics, talking about how well-written they were and lamely claiming they were reading them because their children were.

Even worse, they started speaking in those ridiculous, insipid made-up expressions that only an English writer would feel comfortable creating. "Muggles." "Mud-bloods." Indeed. Here's one I just made up: Stupidmotherfuckingharrypottertardwithnoideawhatrealwritingisallabout! If you say it three times, an ancient evil will be released! What is that evil? The Great Pseudo-intellectual monster Media Saturation!

Oh, I forgot. It's already been unleashed. It looks kinda like this:

Yikes, eh?

People I would have thought were otherwise reasonably intelligent swore by these novels. "They're really not that bad," they'd say through half-embarrassed facial expressions. What they were really saying was, "I love them but I know I shouldn't." To be fair, I've found that most Potter readers tend to be people who don't normally get into fantasy. Most of them don't know anything about the genre outside of movies with dragons and wizards. And even though I could name a dozen books off the top of my head that feature neither, most of them can't.

Those of us who can don't usually find anything interesting about a child with magic powers living in a normal world but attending a school for wizards. Children should never be protagonists in stories aimed at adults. I am inflexible on that point. But it makes sense that moms wouldn't have a problem with that.

I once tried to inflict upon myself the reading of a Harry Potter novel. As with Anne Rice, I got through a few terribly written pages of meaningless tripe and put the book back. Then I tried to suffer through some of the films to see if they translated better into that format. I got through a few minutes of the first one. When I heard the line, "Well, me mum was a muggle and me dad was a wizard" I turned off the TV. Nothing insults my intelligence more than made-up lingo in a real world background. Stupid. Lazy. Lame. If one thinks hard enough, every day words can be made so much more effective.

A few weeks ago I tried to watch another Potter film. I didn't know it was the one reviewed by by yahoo! friends above until I looked up the plot. As I sat there, I realized something about the films. The kids are terrible actors. I mean, truly terrible. I always thought kids from the UK has a leg up in the realm of thespian art, but not these little fuckers. The effects were TV-level at best and the story was practically non-existent. I watched it for over an hour, trying to see the golden turd in the brass toilet. It got worse. Nothing rankles by nut-hairs more than pounding, orchestral crescendos with nothing going on around them.

By the time I could no longer stomach this exercise in futility, I realized how good my instincts had been. Harry Potter doesn't work on any level that doesn't include being a child or a media-addled mommy.

Anybody else should be ashamed of themselves~