A little on the lame side

Rating: 5/10 (17 November 2001)

Spoilers galore!
I have not read this book but the movie is obviously just a visual re-telling of the book and not at all fit as a stand-alone movie. It just feels like it's trying to show certain passages from the book but not really tell a decent story along the way. The motives and plot progression were horribly forced. Some examples were the whole part where the kids guessed about the dragon being a distraction for Hagrid and the immediate realization by the kids that they had to physically participate in the big chess game. Why were 2 pieces missing? Why did Ron end up riding on another piece? It just makes no sense. Why did the stone suddenly end up in Harry's pocket? I know the Headmaster explained it but it's still totally unsatisfactory. And what's with the Headmaster altogether? What kind of ridiculous name is Dumbledore? Am I supposed to take him at all seriously as a powerful wizard with a name like that? His character totally bit. He never displayed any real powers, he never gave any great counsel, and he wasn't that cool as a screen presence. So what about Harry, is his only power basically that he can ride a broomstick at a championship level? Why did he just sit there for most of the Quiddich game? What is the point of even having the other players is once a seeker catches that winged ball the game is won? Why did I find myself fully bored by about the time they went into the woods? Why was Harry's entire character as boring as soccer? I've just read glowing review after glowing review about this movie and I can only surmise that these are all people who've read the book and are filling in all the little annoying gaps from memory.
Don't bother rushing out to see this in the theater (unless you can't stand being left out of the endless conversations there are sure to be about it). It's a real good rental I'm sure. It's certainly good for kids, except it'll probably corrupt them over to the occult. The whole thing just didn't hang together. It felt basically like Home Alone.
BTW - the production design was for the most part pretty great. Oh, and Hermione was just awesome, I loved her. She was just so cute and delightfully bossy.