A magic filled but unimaginative adaptation

Rating: 6/10 (5 August 2014)

I love the Harry Potter books because of their brilliant writing, exciting and funny moments, compelling characters and the way that I'm hooked as soon as I pick one up. They deserved to be such a phenomenon. The films? Not so much. This starts off the adaptations in OK style, and follows Harry Potter's attempts to stop the evil sorcerer who killed his parents getting a stone which will help him return to power.
This, along with the second is directed by Christopher Columbus and the first 2 often seem to be seen as the weakest. In my opinion these 2 aren't the worst, but they're certainly not that great. For some reason, Columbus decides to copy the book page for page but leave out most of its depth, wit and bite. For a Harry Potter fan this may be satisfying, but since the film is also overly syrupy and kid friendly, adults may be irritated by it. This adaptation is a mixed bag overall.
The adult cast has more talented British actors than you can shake a stick at and while most of them have relatively small roles, they certainly leave an impression. John Williams' as usual provides a great soundtrack which sadly was used less in later films and while I'm not desperately keen on Chris Columbus' style, he does do a perfectly OK job at directing the film. To a newcomer and someone who hasn't read the book the film would likely seem magical and fascinating as it thankfully includes many details about the HP universe, which is one of the best fictional universes ever created.
There are some genuinely frightening moments and it provides good escapism. But there are many problems. It's nowhere near as funny or fascinating as the book, which is odd as it's pretty much as carbon copy of the book although to be fair it omits the right parts of the book. It's also overlong and frequently dull, and things such as the troll, the dragon and the mirror are conveyed poorly to the big screen, although the finale is still good. The child actors are excruciating to watch at times, although they would improve in later films.
Overall a wooden and unimaginative adaptation which is cinematically uninteresting and, on my last viewing, a bore to watch. This is the 6th best, and while I used to like it, now I can see it's routine, though competently executed and visually decent, adaptation with little personality. When having to deal with the wooden child actors it's even more irritating.