New MSI exhibit sustains Harry Potter's magic
Harry Potter fans largely agree they've been pleasantly surprised by the movie series, with the exquisite casting and how faithful the films have been to J.K. Rowling's original books.
Yet now there's a new concern, right here in Chicago: Harry Potter: The Exhibition, which stages its world premiere today at the Museum of Science and Industry. Can such an unlikely venue - a science museum, after all - do justice to Rowling's fantastic vision and the movie magic? Or is it just an attempt to cash in on the original?
Fear not, Potterphiles. The MSI's new exhibit is every bit as likely to amuse and amaze as the movies have been, mainly because it draws on more than 200 authentic costumes and props from the films to fill its 10,000-square-foot space in a specially erected tent outside the museum proper. Yet if it's testimony to movie magic - those costumes, those fantastic settings, those mystical yet lifelike creatures - it's also a tribute to Rowling's imagination, which conjured up the very idea of quidditch, hippogriffs, screeching mandrakes and the Marauder's Map, all of which are on display.
True, admission to the museum and exhibit is a not-cheap $26 for adults and $19 for children 3 to 11, $18 and $15 after hours, in evenings when the museum is otherwise closed. And the exhibit eventually pitches its groups into a Diagon Alley shop of knickknacks, gewgaws and other memorabilia sure to tap a parent's purse if it isn't already empty. Yet by that time even a skinflint sourpuss on the order of the Dursleys shouldn't grudge the MSI a little much-merited recompense. Besides, who can resist owning his or her own copy of the Marauder's Map?
Groups of 50 go through the exhibit at set ticketed start times, with one person in each group subjected to the Sorting Hat to pick a Hogwarts house. Then there's a brisk, rapid-fire immersion in film clips before the Hogwarts Express toots and delivers visitors to the moving portrait gallery and the Fat Lady who guards the entrance to the Gryffindor Common Room.
From there, everything one can imagine - or at least J.K. Rowling can imagine - is on display, in exquisite detail, from Gilderoy Lockhart's pop quiz (all about Gilderoy Lockhart, of course) to Professor Lupin's boggart cabinet to mandrakes that screech when pulled up by the roots to Buckbeak, a Dark Mark that hovers in the sky and even Ron Weasley's goalkeeper's uniform from the upcoming "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" movie arriving this summer.
The exhibit flows smoothly from professors and their areas of expertise to quidditch, Hagrid's hut, the Forbidden Forest, the Dark Arts (listen for Voldemort's whispers at the Grim Reaper tombstone from "Goblet of Fire") and finishes, as so many of the movies do, with a moment of triumph in the Great Hall.
"It is 100 percent how we imagined it," said Eddie Newquist, president of branded entertainment with Exhibitgroup/Giltspur, the firm that obtained the rights to develop a Harry Potter exhibit from Warner Bros. three years ago. He was granted access to the immense array of props and costumes at London's Leavesden Studios, where the movies have been shot. "The filmmakers have saved every single item," he said.
Given that wealth of riches, how could they have messed it up? The point is, they didn't. Instead, Newquist has developed a wonderful exhibit that captures the passion readers and filmgoers feel for the Harry Potter series.
"The amount of detail is amazing," Newquist insisted. Many of the costumes wouldn't be out of place in the Art Institute, such as Lucius Malfoy's robes, richly embroidered with red designs, with snake shapes twisted into the leather button holes and complete with red pinstripes in the pants. Visitors can also compare the fine points and upgrades between the Nimbus 2000 and 2001 flying broomsticks. Yet some of the items on display are noteworthy simply for the passion Potter fans have invested in them, such as Hermione's gown or Ron's ridiculous robes from the Yule Ball during the Triwizard Cup competition.
Most visitors will marvel at glimpses of the Time-Turner from "Prisoner of Azkaban," "The Monster Book of Books" and Fawkes the phoenix. Few figure to be disappointed.
The MSI beat out 30 other family-oriented museums from around the world for the rights to play host to the exhibit's premiere. It will be there through Sept. 27 before embarking on a worldwide tour, and this will be its only stop in the American Midwest. So maybe the MSI is the right place for it, in that it figures to attract visitors from afar the way it first did when it was built as the only permanent structure for the 1893 Columbian Exposition.
A Marauder's Map guide to the exhibit
Where: Museum of Science and Industry, 57th Street and Lake Shore Drive, Chicago.
When: Today through Sept. 27.
Hours: 9:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday. (The museum proper typically closes at 4 p.m., but will remain open until 5:30 p.m. from May 22 to Sept. 7.)
Admission: $26 for adults, $25 for seniors, $19 for kids 3 to 11 with museum access; $18 for adults and $15 for kids after hours and on free-admission days, June 1-5 and 19.
Tickets: Call (773) 684-1414 or visit msichicago.org.