jolly good

Rating: 8/10 (16 November 2001)

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (the correct title, ahem) was much anticipated by myself, being an avid fan of the books. I was looking forward to so much - what would the uniforms look like? What would Quidditch be like? I have to say that I was reasonably pleased.
The acting was mostly brilliant - Robbie Coltrane stood out as Hagrid, although his "yer a wizard, Harry" line was a little overdrawn - the eyebrow raising was not necessary. I loved Hermione, I was especially glad they chose a cute little girl. I know in the books she has bushy hair and big teeth, but I never took that to mean she was plain, and I was glad that they didn't think so either. I was less enthusiastic about Harry, Daniel Radcliffe certainly looked the part, but his acting was somewhat wooden. To be fair, his role in this movie is mostly to react to the world around him, a passive part, and as such there was no opportunity for real acting to occur anyways. Rupert Grint portrayed a winning Ron, and I was also struck by the twins, Fred and George, and am looking forward to seeing them more in the next movies.
My one real beef was that the plot seemed to be dumbed-down quite a bit. Many of the funniest, wittiest lines were cut and replaced with inadequate exclamations and the like. Also, there was a fair bit of drama added which was really unnecessary. Ron's speech to Harry before he sacrifices himself during the chess scene (which, incidentally, was a terrific sequence) was not in character and added nothing to the plot. J.K. Rowling writes as if her audience is intelligent; I was sad that the film did not have quite the same opinion of us.
Overall, however, I recommend the film. It is not the book, but then again, what could be?