A good start to an excellent franchise

Rating: 8/10 (4 November 2009)

Yet face, if a book sales well, it is bound to made into a film, regardless of quality, or even if it is filmable. This is true for books like Twilight, the Golden Compass (or Northern Lights what it's really called) and Dan Brown's thrillers. J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series became one of the most popular series of books of all time, appealing to children and adults. There were written in a assessable style, with a clear and strong narrative, but with a good deal of backstory. A film adaption became enviable.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is the first book, and film of the series, starting with Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) as an 11-year-old boy, raised as a regular human (muggle) child by his aunt and uncle. He is abused, forced to live in a small cupboard under the stairs whiles his cousin is spoiled rotten. But Harry's life is changed when he finds out that he had been admitted to Hogwarts, a school for wizards and witches. He discoveries that he is a celebrity in the wizardry world, but does not know his own family history. Whiles in Hogwarts Harry makes friends with Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) and Hermione Granger (Emma Watson), and the three end up working together. Harry becomes the new star of the Quidditch team, and Hermione is the brains of the operation. The three believe that a threat to Hogwarts, with the Dark Wizard Lord Voldermort wanting the Philosopher's Stone hidden in Hogwarts and using his old follower Professor Severus Snape (Alan Rickman) to get it.
When this film was in pre-production a number of big-name directors were attached, including Terry Gilliam, M. Night Shyamalan, Alan Parker, Brad Silberling, Baz Luhrmann and even Steven Spielberg. Spielberg planned making the film animated with Haley Joel Osment doing the voice, luckily this never got off the ground. J.K. Rowling preferred was Terry Gilliam, an excellent director with great vision, but could be a handful with the film going overbudget. Warner Brothers settled for Chris Columbus, a director with a decent reputation for family films, like Home Alone and Mrs Doubtfire. He offers a steady hand, knowing what to do, having fun with CGI and light moments of comedy, as well trying to be like Spielberg involving sentimental moments. But he is not so good on the darker elements of the story, hedge why other directors were brought in for later films. Columbus is basically a safe pair of hands to start things off until the films could stand on their own legs.
J.K. Rowling insisted that the cast for the film should have been all British and Irish. The studio played alone and it was a wise move, much like the Bond movies. It was have betrayed fans and non-fans to see an American Harry with either him in end up going to England or transferring the action to America. There is an excellent cast with actors like Richard Harris, Robbie Coltrane, Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith, John Hurt, just to name a few. The type of film Harry Potter is it did not need a massive A-Lister like Brad Pitt or Will Smith, just good actors. The young actors who played the main three actors were however, not great. They were young, child actors with little experience, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint only acted in school plays. They do however improve in latter films, and we can forgive them because they were young and Chris Columbus isn't known for getting great performers from actors.
The Philosopher's Stone is the most light-hearted of the films. They is good action and a fun story. Making the film a good start to the Harry Potter series, keeping it going to 2011.