Something and nothing

Rating: 1/10 (21 November 2001)

Acting and Casting: pretty good. Maggie Smith and Robbie Coltrane steal the show. The three kid actors are ok, but I've seen better in TV series. Richard Harris is ok, but is just not Dumbledore. Too serious by far. Better would have been Graham Crowden or Freddie Jones, both could have brought just a little bumbling into the character. Alan Rickman is good, but is not menacing enough. In the books, he simply oozes nastiness, in the film he's bland. Both the Richard Harris and Alan Rickman problems are directorial errors, rather than lack of abilities on the part of the actors.
Effects: on the whole, very good and not too intrusive. On the down side,the troll is a joke. It looks like a cartoon, and is not in the slightest a terrifying sight - no wonder Hermione doesn't seem scared. On the plus side, the entrance to Diagon Alley is superb, and the quidditch game is likewise.
Storyline: On the whole it is good. You are always going to miss some parts of the book in an adaptation, but here there are important sections missing, notably the "Norbert" dragon sequence ending with the trip to the top of the tower where Harry loses his invisibility cloak, which is returned to him. Also the sequence where Hermione chooses the potions in Snape's trap. Aside from this, most of the important tags are there, with one or two new episodes to replace large amounts of text. However, unforgiveable is the lack of attention to the Dursley family. They are what makes Harry Harry, as much as his parentage. The book is a quarter of the way through before Hagrid arrives on the scene, yet in the film, the titles are barely over. Likewise, the replacement of one enemy (the Dursleys, Dudley in particular) with another (Slytherin, Malfoy in particular) shows as a shallowness in Harry's character in the final cut.
Having said all that, both I and my Kids (18 and 16) thoroughly enjoyed all 153 minutes, and will probably watch it again. It's a definite addition to the "DVD to buy" list.
Overall 7 out of 10