Inspired me to read the books... ( May contain one or two spoilers)

Rating: 9/10 (19 November 2002)

After reading many of the comments listed here, It appears that many people loved this movie, wow the people that didn't like it utterly LOATHED it. I one of the ones who enjoyed this movie, but lets take a look at some of the bad points of it. First off, there's Quidditch. This game is questionable at best. Basically it's flying soccer on broomsticks, exept the balls fight back. This game would be perfectly logical except for one thing: There's a tiny ball (called the snitch) that flies around, and a special member of the team (called the seeker) has to try and catch it. When he catches it, his team gets 150 points. The game ends only when this happens. So there's really no point to the rest of the game. It not reasonable to assume that a team could get 160 points higher than the other team before the other team catches the snitch. I could understand this if the game of Quidditch was used merely to test the students flying ability, but apparently this is not the case. There's really no logic there at all. I guess the whole Quidditch thing is aimed at 8 year old kids who can barely read or is not meant to be a logical sport, just something to move the plot forward, or sideways, or whatever.
Another problem is the final showdown with the giant snake. It just wasn't fitting that a giant snake that petrified like 10 people is taken down buy a twelve-year old and his bird. He stabbed it with a sword. I mean come on, your a WIZARD! Use MAGIC to kill the monster. The whole thing where the bird miraculously appeared to help Harry out of the "loyaltyness" of Harry was just a bit farfetched. And if a mythical giant snake that is intelligent enough to follow orders but isn't quick enough to catch a flying red bird than what is?
Was it faithful to the book? More or less. The little side stories like Nick's Deathday party that were just plain weirs and stupid and I didn't mind them being taken out. The movie also shows that the Harry Potter books aren't all that witty or intelligently written. Example? How about that hilarious line from Ronald Weasly: "Follow the spiders? Why can't it be "Follow the butterflies?" In the book? Nope. I will have to agree that some of the more interesting characters (Snape, Malfoy) should have appeared more. They weren't in the book ALL that much, but there "scenes" were all very meaningful. I think everybody played there parts fine. I had no problem with anybody's performance. Kenneth Branagh did quite a good job as Gilderoy Lockheart and Alan Rickman was THE man as usual. I think the main reason the movie and the book are so much alike is that in the book, stuff is ALWAYS happening, just like a movie. The author never takes too much time to elaborate on locations, history or atmosphere. That's probably easy because the whole book and movie take place at the school and everywhere surrounding it. It's almost in direct antithesis to "The Lord of the Rings," where the books take place across a whole planet. Some people may not like that kind of style, but I surely do. Despite it's few flaws I enjoyed the movie so much it inspired me to read the first two books after watching it.