Voldemort towers over the stage during the opening ceremony in London. / By Andrew P. Scott, USA TODAY Sports
By Mike Lopresti, USA TODAY
Good show, London. Long, but good.
The Queen in her screen
acting debut as a James Bond girl, certainly an opening ceremony first.
Rowan Atkinson running with the lads from Chariots of Fire. Harry Potter and William Shakespeare and Paul McCartney. Bicycles made up to be doves, Muhammad Ali holding the Olympic flag.
And
in the end, the flame lit not by a famous face but seven young people,
igniting more than 200 copper petals - one for each country - that
converged into a burning flower of Olympic best wishes and hopes.
It
wasn't Beijing. Not as exotic, not as magical. And not as expensive.
This opening ceremony was quirky and fun and loud and British.
There
were not the wow moments of Beijing, just many very cool ones among the
3½ hours. There was more humor than we usually see from an opening
ceremony, with puns and pop culture among the pomp and circumstance.
During
the athletes' parade, Fiji marched in to the music of the Bee Gees. And
was that really dozens of Mary Poppins floating in from the sky?
It was a show that did not take itself too seriously. The guess is that played well on television back in the colonies.
Queen
Elizabeth and Daniel Craig sharing a scene was not to be missed. "It's
believed this is the first time Her Majesty has acted on film," the
program noted.