Very Succesful attempt, Filled with Magical wonder

Rating: 10/10 (11 November 2001)

I should start by saying I am an absolute Harry Potter nut and so the film carried a huge weight of expectation. It didn't disappoint. The film includes stunning renderings of all the key scenes, wonderfully acted by an obviously caring and dedicated team. The scenery and effects are stunning and fill you with a sense of wonder I haven't felt since I was a kid. Diagon alley, platform 9 3/4 and Hogwarts are all straight from J.K. Rowlings descriptions and were just how I pictured them. The set pieces of the quiditch and chess match were fantastically exciting and added pace to a film that could have lagged (its 2 1/2 hours!). The acting was uniformly superb. Maggie Smith is brilliant as the strict yet caring McGonagal, Richard Harris adds the perfect sense of weght to Dumbledore and Snape is made suitably menacing without being camp by Alan Rickman. The kids are brilliant, Rupert Grin and Emma Watson making Ron and Hermione their own, with only one line sounding corny from either. Dan Radcliffe is good as Harry but would I feel have benefited from a bit of voice to camera naration to explain his feelings. A mention should also go to Sean Biggerstaff as Oliver Wood, who is great when guiding Harry through quiditch and performing heroics in the Gryfindor goal. Undoubtedly the star of the show though is Robbie Coltrane's Hagrid, he shows a full range of emotion from rage at the dursleys to caring ad sensitive with Harry. He also gets the best comedic momments throughout the film.
The film cuts out some of the ancillary bits from the book, the begging is truncated and some scenes which added context or insight are missing, but if you left them in it would have to be a mini series instead of a film. Nothing important is missed however and the film still conveys the magical wonder of the book.
I loved this film, it had me cheering at the quiditch and crying at the end with the poignant momnts of interaction between characters. The film is truly magical!