Entertaining but not satisfying.

Rating: 6/10 (28 November 2001)

With the movie finally here out in the open it's hard to say if expectations weren't too high. It all sounded good: a fine cast & J.K. Rowling being mainly involved. Could this go wrong?
Well, yes and no. First of all: the cast is fine, the adultcast is great even (with Hagrid being my favorite and a fabulous John Hurt as mr. Ollivander). The kids are fine too, Emma Watson does a great job als Hermione. The locations look great, Hogwarth's is fabulous - with the floating pumpkins at Halloween as a subtle highlight. And of course, after reading the books, it's fun to see it all for a change. Then there are scenes that are truly fascinating, like quidditch, the dark forest and the chess-play. John Williams's music is very good. So, there *is* a lot to enjoy. And the computer-generated moving stairs are beautiful. But even in this movie the most scary element (invisible Voldemort in a black cloak drinking unicornblood and threatening Harry) is just a piece of black cloth. As where the CGI-troll wasn't scary at all.
The major lack in the movie is it's pace. It's too fast. There is simply too much to tell and the movie can't choose between plot (what is the philosopher's stone and who wants to steal it) and simply showing Harry's life on Hogwarth's (school, quidditch, magic). It's clear that a 2.5 hour movie cannot do this both properly. Sometimes it feels like we're zapping through Harry's life, and the fact that the events in the movie take about a year doesn't come through at all.
I believe this all comes from the involvement of J.K. Rowling and the filmmaker's idea to stick as close to the book as possible. The movie is indeed close to the book, too close I think. Someone like Spielberg - who didn't get the job - would have made the story more into a movie and less into a combination of scenes.
With this movie, you keep feeling like you are on the sideline, looking in on Harry's life, where you should be drawn in to his world, like in the books. Now it's just a bunch of nice pictures, changing quickly and leaving me unsatisfied and longing for the warm long lasting bath the books are.