I think it's as good as the book, but it's all sorcerical.

Rating: 8/10 (11 March 2020)

For me, the movies will always be a mixed bag and even the first one has its logistical problems.
But if you have no experience with the franchise at all, I would ask you to please give this movie a chance. Although it suffers a lot from jolty pacing at times, there is not a dull moments with so much neat design, visual intelligence and sheer imagination in selling this fantasy of the British public school that happens to also be magic. (Public school means private school, here. And my compatriots say Americans can't speak English!)
The narrative is fragmented by I like its style as a compendium of adventures that fall into one over arching adventure as we discover a new world alongside our adorable everyboy, a world that also happens to be familiar to the target demographic, playing up our fears of belonging and keeping up while indulging the fantasy of escaping annoying relatives to become a hero in a place where anything seems possible, except getting to school on time!
If you can just role with the cheesy kids' movie feel, it can be a real treasure with an evening's sky worth of acting talent really selling the illusion especially Robbie Coltrane as the friendly giant and Maggie Smith as the frightening transfiguration teacher.
It's as funny and chicly formidable as you'd expect but it really does earn its moments of pathos as well. The ending always sort of makes me want to cry (in the good way).