THE world may not be ready yet for the film equivalent of books on tape, but this peculiar phenomenon has arrived in the form of the film adaptation of J. K. Rowling's ''Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.'' The most highly awaited movie of the year has a dreary, literal-minded competence, following the letter of the law as laid down by the author. But it's all muted flourish, with momentary pleasures, like Gringott's, the bank staffed by trolls that looks like a Gaudà throwaway. The picture is so careful that even the tape wrapped around the bridge of Harry's glasses seems to have come out of the set design. (It never occurred to anyone to show him taping the frame together.)
The movie comes across as a covers act by an extremely competent tribute band -- not the real thing but an incredible simulation -- and there's an audience for this sort of thing. But watching ''Harry Potter'' is like seeing ''Beatlemania'' staged in the Hollywood Bowl, where the cheers and screams will drown out whatever's unfolding onstage.
To call this movie shameless is beside the point. It would probably be just as misguided to complain about the film's unoriginality because (a) it has assumed that the target audience doesn't want anything new and (b) Ms. Rowling's books cannibalize and synthesize pop culture mythology, proof of the nothing-will-ever-go-away ethic. She has come up with something like ''Star Wars'' for a generation that never had a chance to thrill to its grandeur, but this is ''Young Sherlock Holmes'' as written by C. S. Lewis from a story by Roald Dahl.