Full disclosure: I have never read any of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels. I have never seen any of the blockbuster movies based on her series. That I plan to never do so is not entirely because of any perceived intellectual and emotional poverty of these books and movies–I know plenty of smart people who enjoy the Harry Potter stories, and there could be, at extremely generous moments, a certain side of me that would consider giving them a shot. But not as long as there are movies like We Are Wizards, and not as long as there exist the Harry Potter-crazed subjects who comprise this painful documentary’s meretricious survey of kitschy fandom.
In the spirit of Trekkies and the recent proliferation of docs focused on devotees of mildly eccentric cultural phenomena (Spellbound, Wordplay, and guess what, there’s a Dungeons and Dragons film a-comin’), We Are Wizards presents a panoply of Potter groupies whose love for their hero is shared with the world in the form of Harry-themed rock bands, alternate soundtracks to the movies, and protests against cease-and-desist policies leveled at fan sites. In other words, over-proud, geeky “expansions” of Rowlings’ universe, as the film’s one interviewed professor banally deems it with academic authority, shielding the stuntedness of adolescent fantasy with self-deprecating and pseudo-irreverent adorability.
Click here to read the rest of Michael Joshua Rowin’s review of We Are Wizards.
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