Sadly, it would never have worked

Rating: 7/10 (1 April 2005)

If you, like so many others, had high expectations for the movie because of how good the books were, then you would have walked away disappointed. A book as popular as Harry Potter could never have been done to appeal to all its fans because so many will pick out every little mistake in the film that doesn't coincide with the book.
It was clearly difficult to compress the book into a movie-safe length and given that almost all who watch it will have read the books anyway, there wasn't too much left out. However, Daniel Radcliffe just doesn't work when playing Harry. Sure, he looks like him, but the way he speaks as if he's on his deathbed just isn't Harry. Likewise Emma Watson and Rupert Grint; their expression was far too over the top to seem real, despite the theme of the movie.
The worst of it all is that the movie had too many clichÃ©s to really stand out from the rest of the pack. It just wasn't magical.