Where it all began.

Rating: 10/10 (5 October 2005)

With the sixth book now out (and one more to go), I feel that I should review "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone". By now, the Harry Potter books have become so well entrenched in our culture that I don't even need to explain the story. But I can say that director Chris Columbus did a great job adapting the book to the silver screen.
The cast does very well with the roles: newcomer Daniel Radcliffe plays Harry Potter, making him strong-willed but vulnerable. Rupert Grint and Emma Watson play his friends, the uptight Ron Weasley and the no-nonsense Hermione Granger. The Hogwarts staff is played by a who's-who of British actors: Richard Harris as headmaster Albus Dumbledore, Maggie Smith as anthropomorphic Prof. Minerva McGonagall (and one can detect a hint of Miss Jean Brodie there), Alan Rickman as unctuous Prof. Severus Snape, and Robbie Coltrane as gamekeeper Rubeus Hagrid. Others include Zoe Wanamaker as Quidditch teacher Madame Hooch, Julie Walters as Molly Weasley (Ron's mum), Richard Griffiths as Vernon Dursley (Harry's mean uncle) and even John Cleese as Nearly-Headless-Nick, one of the school ghosts.
All in all, this is a movie for the ages. I know that religious fundamentalists will claim that the Harry Potter books are promoting witchcraft, but are we really going to believe those kinds of people, considering that they claimed the same things about "Bewitched"? Harry Potter will live forever - something that no Muggle can do.