I saw Harry Potter twice this weekend. No, it's not that good. I just happen to have a bunch of friends who find the mix of magic and the banal appealing, which is not to say that I feel this series is banal. It is just difficult to voluntarily appreciate something that is being treated like a cash cow. Luckily it is not so precious an phenomenon that I feel any need to disparage it further than to point out the banal reception it has received from Hollywood and to say, in a loud, outraged voice, that "I'm not jealous of its success!"

In fact this second offering of Harry Potter is not without merit. It actually excels because it is a sequel. Although it hangs in the background framing scenes as it was originally intended, the CGI special effects are still there with all the "oh, wow" of the first movie. Kudos to the animators of the House Elf character, Dobby (are "Brownies" so foreign to Americans minds that this little bit of Anglo culture needed re-editing?) and the additional designers of the "cloth" animators who managed to make this bit of screen magic carry enough weight to advance the story line whenever it got off track with animated spiders and petrified school chums. There is none of the "showcasing" that made much of the first movie tedious and over long. Still, at two and a half hours, this story could have used some creative editing.