Film - Philip Kerr on how Arthurian magic saves Harry Potter from being a muggle

In common with most of the adult members of the cast of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, I haven't read J K Rowling's book; but my elder son has read all of them, and therefore it was inevitable that he and his younger brother should accompany me to see the film. Or should that be the other way round? These two boys declared it was the best film they had ever seen - but then, they said the same about Cats and Dogs, and they'll probably say the same about The Lord of the Rings when, eventually, that comes out. My own opinion is that Harry Potter is pretty good, and that adults with children will probably enjoy it, too.

The story is a familiar one, involving a chosen child and, given the archetype (plus a reported £90m budget), the appropriate magic seems certain to follow. Following the death of his parents, the baby Harry (Arthur) is taken by a Professor of Wizardry named Dumbledore (Merlin), to be brought up by Mr Dursley and his family (Sir Ecktor and his son, Kay). Harry is forced to live like a drudge until, one day, a letter arrives inviting him to take up a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Rowling's fictional school is surely based on one of the many Gothic piles of educational misery in Edinburgh, where the author lives, an impression that is enhanced by the presence of Maggie Smith as Professor McGonagall, seemingly reprising her role as Miss Jean Brodie. Given Harry's new incarnation as a Scottish public schoolboy, we are soon left with the sense that what we have here is a case of rex quondam rexque futurus, the king who once was and who will be again.

At the same time, however, Harry learns that his parents were killed by the evil Voldemort (Morgan Le Fay), and that he has a sinister young rival in the person of Draco Malfoy (Mordred). Voldemort is still at large, living a half-life on the blood of unicorns and plotting to steal nothing less than the philosophers' stone that grants eternal life (the Holy Grail).

That's enough archetypes. How about something a little less Jungian than an archetype, something a little more Hollywood? Such as a high concept? (Yes.) This film is Star Wars meets Tom Brown's Schooldays. There, that's better.

To be honest, Harry is not really much of a part for Daniel Radcliffe to get his teeth into; and among the children at least, it is Rupert Grint, as Harry's loyal friend, Ron Weasley, who makes a better fist of a better part. Playing Harry must be a little like playing King Arthur; almost everyone in Malory - Merlin, Lancelot, Mordred - has a better part than Arthur.

Among the universally British list of actors and actresses, Robbie Coltrane as Hagrid, the kindly giant and Hogwarts groundskeeper, is twice as large as life - if such a thing were possible - and steals the show from under the noses of Richard Harris, Maggie Smith, Ian Hart and Alan Rickman. Otherwise, it is the film's production designer, Stuart Craig, upon whom the greatest praise must be lavished. These sets, especially the ones in Diagon Alley, where Harry goes to get kitted out for school, are the best I've seen in a film shot on these shores for a long time, and I was often reminded of Carol Reed's film of the musical Oliver!.

The director, Christopher Columbus (doubtless his parents had a sense of humour), proves to be a safe, if hardly prestidigitating, pair of hands; his greatest contribution to an almost fireproof script by Steven Kloves is merely to have avoided repeating the mawkish sentimentality of the earlier tripe he has turned out, such as Stepmom and Bicentennial Man.

Talking of tripe, I must mention the score, by Mr Music-by-the-Yard, John Williams. For almost 30 years now, Williams has been the main force in cinema composing. Many of his scores - most notably Star Wars - have been excellent. Others have not. The opening bars of this one are reminiscent of the waltz from Shostakovich's Jazz Suite Number One (used by Stanley Kubrick in Eyes Wide Shut), but after that, the score is entirely forgettable, and smothered underneath the pudding that is Williams's trademark overegged orchestration. I understand that pre-production for the next film is already under way. Williams should be replaced at once.

I also have reservations about the film's length. At 153 minutes, it's at least 30 minutes too long, and I rather suspect that the producers - brilliant and talented though they are, not least for having the nous to buy the film rights before the phenomenon got started - hesitated to remove some of the book's episodes and characters for fear of offending millions of tiny but vociferous readers: chapters such as the Sorting Hat scene ought to have ended up on the cutting-room floor alongside the character of Nearly Headless Nick (John Cleese) and the motherly, but here entirely irrelevant, Mrs Weasley (Julie Walters). But then, what do I know? I'm just a muggle. And a grown-up muggle at that.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (PG) is on nationwide release

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