An illustration to the book, read the book first.

Rating: 7/10 (9 December 2001)

Unfortunately, the film cannot stand alone, without support of the book, and the viewers that did not read the book would find it long, boring, not accentuated. The suspense scenes are not suspenseful enough and the funny scenes are not funny enough. One of the subplots of the book is teaching Neville Longbottom to stand up for himself. The movie skips the moments of Malfoy's bullying Neville and thus the 10 points for Gryffindor in the end don't seem logical. It seems this is the result of poor editing. Some scenes were cut to make the movie shorter without taking into account the following scenes. Definitely, the movie is very politically correct avoiding calling Hermione a witch. That's funny but, unfortunately, this kills one of the funniest episodes in the book.
The special effects were good. The quidich game was simply great. Hogwarts was great too, especialy the Great Hall. But Hagrid's cabin had to be wooden.
The characters were not bad, especially bossy Hermione and Ron. Snape and Quirell were, weak, underdevelopped, however. I gave it 7/10. Perhaps a little bit too high. It is not a masterpiece but an enjoyable illustration to the book.