A very good rendering of a comic that is actually a novel.

Rating: 7/10 (12 December 2001)

I couldn't help the feeling of emptiness after watching Harry Potter. The movie is wonderfully rendered. Acting is great. The only problem is that, the movie was either on a tight budget or on time contraints.
Watching the movie, you can't help but get the feeling that the director is trying to put as many aspects of the original novel into the movie that he doesn't give any of them justice.
For instance, Harry's family, they are protrayed sarcastically in the start and then completely forgotten, even Harry doesn't seem to recall they exist.

Another example, is this Centaur that jumps in, saves Harry, and leaves. To people who read the novel, they might know who that is and feel empowered by such knowledge.. To the majority that didn't.. They are left feeling that a scene in which the centaur tells Harry who he is should be there.
And so the movie goes, after a slow calm start, the movie runs in similar fashion, at first portraying Harry's miserable childhood, and then quickly leaving that and taking you to Hogwarts where the movie portrays the wonders of the school and then leaves them there and shifts focus to the sorcerer's stone and Voldemort. And just when you get emersed into that, the final conflict is quickly upon you and it is one of the weakest final conflicts you have ever seen in a fantasy movie. There is no real battle.. No grand finale, no suspense. Nothing. Just a dead end. Perhaps the Novel had more to offer, but the movie did not, and so a better ending was in order.
And so, after leaving the movie, you feel pleased and disappointed. Every rendering of one aspect of Harry's story was accurate, the problem is that the sum of it didn't really fit together well nor did it do the story well. In fact, if there was one theme to the whole movie, it would be the four houses that the apprentices are inducted into. Which is sad because there are greater themes in the novel itself, but this is the only theme that flows through out the movie. Everything else pops in and then quickly pops out again.
I think the best solution to this problem would be to make the movie longer.. At least an extra hour of film is missing from this rendition of the Harry Potter stories. This is why I felt the movie was cut short for some reason. Any one can feel it. Every rendering that took place was accurate, but not one rendering gave justice to the original novel.