Review of We Are Wizards (2008) by Gabe L — 01 Oct 2008

Recently I read all 7 Harry Potter books in one week...what can I say, I live in Canada now and there's not much to do. When my boyfriend told me we were going to see a documentary on Harry Potter fans, I was intrigued. I expected the film to focus on people who ran fan websites, maybe some fan fiction and/or live action performances of the books. Instead a got a mish-mash of people and scenes thrown together poorly that mainly bored the audience.

There were a few contributors to the documentary that could be taken seriously. For instance, I was incredibly interested to hear about the website, The Leaky Cauldron, which hosted a podcast for fans about the books. Also, the self-claimed inventors of "wizard rock", the band Harry and the Potters, genuinely seemed fun and talented. But when you saw them next to the dozens of other bands that were created to parrot their success, you couldn't help but feel that something beautiful had been destroyed.

The vast majority of the film was a disgrace to Harry Potter. I am not sure WHY the film makers chose to prominently feature an untalented, screeching 7 year old boy who had a Wizard Rock band and his family so prominently. The boy shouted garbled crap about dragons and fantasy creatures that could be loosely applied to Harry Potter over Garage band tracks and his parents thought he was this generation's Beethoven. It was obvious that his parents named the band and gave him an over-inflated self image by putting said name of band on every freaking piece of clothing the kid wore.

The only poetic justice I found in including this family was just about every scene that featured them was followed by this foul, cursing man that wrote an 'adult' commentary for the first Harry Potter movie.

All in all, I can not recommend this film to anyone and deeply regret ever going to see it.