Surely bloody wicked, though left wanting because...

Rating: Null/10 (19 November 2001)

... of the following simple objective points:
On the plus side: Robbie Coltrane brings a swell of 'good guy' feeling with his role - perfect casting. The other adult cast members are well cast - a magic fit indeed - though not enough Madam Hooch. What we see in the movie, is true to the book subject to some adaptation and severe compression/consolidation of the storyline - not all the 'key' scenes from the book are in there. Rupert Grint - a total natural it would seem, though I think we should all know how he auditioned by now - he could just record it and play it at interviews. He actually participated (by his own admission during an interview) anonymously in a Newsround's (a UK children's news show) discussion group - good on him - I hope he embraces the Internet opportunities. Tom Feldon as Draco shows his commercial experience well though doesn't look quite 'bad'/'evil' enough.
On the minus: Daniel Radcliffe - one of the most commercially experienced young actors in the movie unfortunately tends to over deliver his lines in a hurried unnatural pantomime fashion, though his facial expressions are dead on as a plus. Sorry Daniel; you may have still been awe-struck at getting the part, but hopefully you'll ease into it later on - you definately looked a bit giddy on the US television interviews (e.g. sitting behind Robbie on the Rosie O'Donnell show). The fact that his dialogue is few and far between relative to the duration of the movie doesn't give him much to get his teeth into - and I don't think that Chris Columbus' pantomime styling helped despite due praise otherwise. We should bear in mind that in this first story, things happen to Harry rather than him leading the action, which could be why he appears too passive when combined with the shear number of scenes he appears in. There are inconsistent stories as to how Daniel got the role, other than at the last minute - he said on an interview I saw that 'his father knew the producer' while others state that he was spotted at a theatre (not a movie theatre) by the producer, was lost in the crowd and found later on due to work connections - would like to hear the true/consistent story on that. Alan Rickman's short presence on screen - a pity, but he doesn't need the exposure. John Cleese's short presence on screen - unless this sets something important for the sequel screen-plays he could have been chopped just like the Peeves character - and a bit silly that his name was at the top of the credits. We didn't see enough of the Dursleys given their importance is defining the extreme Muggle case. Over visualisation - not enough character building and dialogue nor atmosphere and suspense. Not enough Quidditch - whizzed by far too quickly. Emma Watson - a bit too giddy (including on tv interviews) and a little over-acted but solid nonetheless. It was 2.5 hours long yet if you've read the book you may find yourself feeling short-changed. WB should consider two parts from next year, so than can do two 1.5 hour movies for books 2 and 3 and two 2.5 hour movies for book 4. I'm sure someone will attempt to make (though hopefully JK Rowling will not allow it) this into a hideous cartoon series of constantly yelling characters like certain Japanese cartoons I could mention.
I'm sure we will not see the DVD until next summer, and perhaps later if WB is feeling 'cruel', but if it doesn't have hours of deleted scenes on it or a 4-hour Director's cut, they'll probably be hell to pay from the fans.
At this point, if WB changes the core 3 cast fans will probably revolt and it makes sense to go year-for-year (fictional aging to real aging) despite them not all being 11.
An 8.7 for this movie.