Harry and the Quidditch team before the steroid scandal broke.

I’m different from a lot of people, some would say freakishly so. No, it’s not my towering intellect, my finely honed wit or my slightly webbed toes. It’s that I’ve never read a single one of the Harry Potter books. Therefore, I went to see Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone with a different set of expectations than many in the crowd. I expected, or at least hoped for, a compelling, emotionally engaging story. Sadly, I was disappointed.

One of the few people who was, judging from the critical and box office success this movie is generating.

So what were all those other folks expecting? It seems that a lot of people went in with a mental checklist of elements from the novel, and would be happy if, and only if, all those elements were incorporated into the movie. Harry’s owl? Check. Ear wax flavored jelly beans? Check. Round glasses and lightning bolt scar? Check.

Plot? Um, sorry, doesn’t seem to be on the list. Could it be under another name?

Harry, in case you haven’t heard, is an English boy, orphaned as an infant, being raised by relatives who are intolerably mean, even by British standards. (Yeah, I know that sounds like a cheap shot, but have you seen that lady on The Weakest Link?) On his eleventh birthday, he’s whisked away by a kindly giant named Hagrid, and taken to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where he plans to study accounting. Just kidding, he’s going to be a wizard. And potentially a really great wizard, judging by the talents of his dear departed parents who died opposing the evil wizard Voldemort. Young Harry, as an infant, was the only person ever to survive an attack by Voldemort and so he is legend among the broomstick and pointy hat set.

"It's not the size of the wand, boys, it's how you use it."

So Harry goes to Hogwarts and, as far as I can tell, meets every witch, wizard, goblin, troll, unicorn, centaur, rat, dragon and sorting hat that he encounters in the book. Whether any particular element is used in an interesting or significant way is irrelevant as long as it’s there.

Listen, I can sympathize. I’ve got my own literature-to-film obsessions to deal with. When The Fellowship of the Ring comes out you can all mock me for caring about whether Balrogs have wings or moaning about Arwen overload. (Thus proving beyond a shadow of a doubt my essential geekiness.) In the meantime, I’m left wondering if some of the energy devoted to getting all the parts of the Harry Potter movie exactly right may have been better spent forming a more cohesive whole.

I was kind of bored, you see. Yes, it was satisfying to watch Harry plucked from life with a boorish, unappreciative family and restored to his rightful place as a cherished and special member of a magical world. (Who hasn’t had that fantasy, after all.) And the world of Hogwarts is charming and it was fun to learn its rules and quirks. The characters are appealing, and played by a mix of gifted children and great adult actors (Richard Harris, Maggie Smith, Robbie Coltrane, Alan Rickman). But none of it really went anywhere. The search for the Sorcerer’s Stone played out like an afterthought. The whole thing felt unfinished and rather trivial.

The Marilyn Manson look doesn't really work for Alan Rickman.

Mixed reviews, too, for the movie’s look. The great banquet hall at Hogwarts, with its floating candles and ghostly visitors is grand, but the rest of the school looks like a school. (Okay, a school in a castle, but still a school.) And the movie’s centerpiece action sequence, the Quidditch match, is distractingly portrayed in a mix of live action and computer animation less convincing than many video games. The contrast between the two is jarring. (By the way, Quidditch is kind of like soccer on flying brooms, with two teams beating the crap out of each other trying to score points, pretty much for nothing because if one player catches the elusive Golden Snitch his team automatically wins. There’s a lesson in there about the futility of life, but don’t tell the kids.)

So, okay, I’m not the audience for this movie. It’s aimed squarely at children, and that’s fine. But there are plenty of “kids” movies that I have great affection for – Shrek and The Wizard of Oz spring immediately to mind. Movies with characters I care about, high-stakes adventures and genuine suspense. Maybe we’ll get more of that in the upcoming Potter sequels, now that all the introductions are out of the way. If so, I guess I would have preferred to watch the Cliffs Notes version of this film then jump right into the story.

Gorilla Pants rating: 2 out of 4 bananas