This is not the book.

Rating: 10/10 (17 July 2007)

First, I'd like to start by saying that I haven't read the book. I refuse to read any of the books until I have finished seeing all the movies, so that I don't waste time picking apart minor detail inconsistencies. I am judging this movie by its value as a movie, not its accuracy to the book.
Everything about this movie was great: the acting was top notch, the music was more than fitting, the set design was stellar, the lighting was top notch... I could go on and on about what was done right during production, but the writing (something typically done during preproduction) was better than everything else that this movie did right combined. Though I don't know how closely this movie sticks to Rowling's original story, I do know that many of the "haters" are wrong.
I've heard from people who have read the book that the plot doesn't flow well in the movie. This is not true at all; the flow may have been different but it was very good. I've heard that certain scenes which were omitted from the book make the movie difficult to understand. This is also incorrect; even though I haven't been exposed to these missing scenes, I understood the movie perfectly. I've heard that mistakes were made in the writing of the movie which cause large continuity errors. I did not notice any continuity errors either within the movie or to previous movies in the series.
This is the first (maybe not last, but probably) time I've ever walked out of a movie at the theater thinking to myself "This is the best movie I've ever seen." Purists can feel free to complain all they want, but this remains an excellent movie. Not having read the book, I can neither confirm or deny that the book was better than the movie, but I can say without a doubt that this film is a must see for anybody who is old enough to handle it and is familiar (or is willing to become familiar) with the previous Harry Potter stories.