Overall a fine expirience.

Rating: 7/10 (22 November 2019)

I decided to do a check-up on Harry Potter's famous adventure made for the big screen, so I started reading the books yet again, because I know that changes have been made to make it fit for a visual medium. I knew I would prefer the book, because I'll admit that some scenes that were cut didn't make sense to me.
But I could go on talking only about that, so therefore I'll bring up the good stuff.
The music was beautiful and really captured the sense of wonder when all the magical elements were presented. And the Hogwarts castle was stunning in its grandiosity and still struck me with awe and amazement. The broomstick flying hasn't aged too well as you can tell that they're not really flying when they come in for close-ups, but you can't really blame a movie for being made when it is and the Quidditch game still looked good and felt exciting.
Alan Rickman and Robbie Coltrane as Professor Severus Snape and Hagrid respectively were well chosen for the roles and as far as I know, J.K. Rowling had a personal say in their assignments to the roles and it payed off in my opinion. Rickman's soft voice was just what I heard in my head when reading his lines in the books and Coltrane puts just as much likability into Hagrid as I remembered.
Richard Harris and Maggie Smith as Dumbledore and Mcgonagall respectively also did well adding personality and face to those characters. And Rupert Grint stood out as a funny Ron Weasley among our main charcaters. As it is their first meeting with each other, they have to warm up to each other's company, so I Harry is mostly going around being all "wow, it's amazing, I didn't know that" but comes around and discovers thing he is not supposed to and getting into trouble as the movie goes on. Hermione is a know-it-all and Malfoy is an arrogant dick. It's a first movie in a coming-of-age story, so that is to be expected.
But I was disappointed with one thing especially, just to round off the faithfulness to the book, because Hermione's character was surprisingly down-played in a couple of crucial areas making up her character growth in the book some of them also could have made a couple of exciting scenes. That made her a little more one-dimensional here, I'll admit.
While some crucial scenes didn't make it, the movie is still good-looking and with some really good choises made for other characters. Add in some fantastic music and you have a fantasy film for the whole family.