Amazon.co.uk Review
The Magical World of JK Rowling is an early bid to cash in on the fresh wave of Potter-mania that's about to break in the wake of the first big-screen Harry Potter. Fair enough, except that the makers of this documentary are operating under certain minor disadvantages: they've got no material, and nothing to say. As a result, some fairly desperate padding has gone on. For all that, even though the film runs a mere 39 minutes, it still feels painfully overstretched. For a start, they evidently couldn't get hold of JK Rowling herself. This isn't too surprising--after some bad experiences with the press following the success of the first Harry Potter book, she virtually never gives interviews (she took her revenge in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which features an obnoxious tabloid hack who meets a very unpleasant fate). The filmmakers make do with excerpts from her speech at the 1999 British Book Awards, interspersed with interviews with critics, bookstore assistants, school kids and teachers. This is all just about as exciting, and illuminating, as it sounds. The film's biggest scoop is a family who knew Rowling when she was a girl, and whose surname is--wait for it--Potter! Not even the most avid HP fan will get much from this limp effort. Sit tight and wait for the film. --Philip Kemp

DVD Description

DVD Special features:
Includes J.K. Rowling biography and a child’s eye view of the main characters

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3 Reviews 5 star:    (0) 4 star:    (0) 3 star:  (1) 2 star:  (2) 1 star:    (0)           Average Customer Review (3 customer reviews)		Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews   24 of 24 people found the following review helpful: Very Useless, 23 May 2004 By  Chris (London, UK) - See all my reviews It didn't give any real info that was useful. All it contained was 40 minutes of absoulute junk. It came out before GOF, so it contains no hints, no real interviews. I would not recomend this product.  Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? (Report this)   58 of 60 people found the following review helpful: It Could Be So Much Better, 22 Feb 2002 By  d.eld02@repton.org.uk (Britain, Derby) - See all my reviews ...I bought this DVD hoping for something on par with therecent BBC 1 interviews with JK Rowling. I was sorely mistaken. The DVD is a fourty minute mess, it is totally based around interviews with people who have read the books or are selling the books. It has a few short scenes with JK but it is not a personal interview it is just her winning awards. The extras are poor simply summorising each characters role in the book. It is also quite out of date the title for The Goblet Of Fire has not even been released when this is filmed. I felt that I learnt nothing from this DVD. I would not recommed it.  Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? (Report this)   8 of 54 people found the following review helpful: IUt is very good with a few very minor glitches, 2 Oct 2001 By A Customer It was very good, I espically liked the one on one interviews with the fans, it wsa well worth buying, but they could of rehearsed the acting from the fans a bit more so it looked more professional, but even so it looked good because they just picked people of the streets to say what they thought. I especialy liked the stories of her childhood dreams.  Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? (Report this) › See all 3 customer reviews...		Search Customer Reviews Only search this product's reviews