Harry Potter Month - Mini Review: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

It’s Harry Potter Month. 

Where I do mini reviews of all but one of the Harry Potter because like hell am I doing long reviews of movies that are within the realms of 2 and a half hours long. In fact, I’m only really doing a long review of half a movie… OK, I’m going off a bit here but let’s just say that the Harry Potter films do question the myth that children have short attention spans.

So where better to start than the first movie: Harry Potter and the Philsopher’s (or if you’re in America Sorcerer’s because... I really don’t care, the books were written by J K Rowling in England, it’s Philosopher’s) Stone.

Released in 2001 the movie was given a $125m budget and naturally was a success, grossing $987m in the box office, the second highest of any of the Harry Potter movies.

Just a final note before I begin, I haven’t reread the books for the purposes of these reviews, I’m judging the film on its own merits, not as an adaptation (although for some intent, I will reference areas of the book that I remember)

In this film Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) discovers his heritage as a wizard and is invited to join Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. There he meets Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) and Hermione Granger (Emma Watson) as they eventually get tangled in events as one of the staff seeks the mysterious Philospher’s stone hidden within the school’s very walls.

As a first outing goes it’s a very good one, some great talent like Maggie Smith, Robbie Coltrane and Richard Harris (god rest his soul) play the parts of Professor McGonnagal, Hagrid and Professor Dumbledore respectively. The acting amongst the child actors isn’t quite to that standard but for many this is one of their first times actually acting. Under the circumstances nothing felt particularly off

Even 14 years later most of the effects still hold up, there’s a particular one that doesn’t but I’ll get to that in a moment. The biggest thing this movie had to accomplish is make the magic look real and for most of the movie it does exactly that. The mixture of CGI and set pieces is done well and most still holds up.

We have a few story hiccups, but mostly minor nitpicks from me so here are a couple of them

1)   Why didn’t the trio use the invisibility cloak when going out at night?

2) Where was Snape’s protection of the stone?

But I digress, these are not issues that spoil my enjoyment of the film, just minor observations. What holds up least well is any scene on a broomstick, particularly the Quidditch match. The background CGI looks fake by modern standards but this is again only a minor thing

The first Harry Potter film is a wonderful movie that even to this day I enjoyed, if you liked the books, whilst there are things cut out, this is a good movie for you. Even if you’re into fantastical stories, I’d recommend this movie.

Rating 85/100

For more reviews click here

Images used in this review are from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and belong to their respective owners. All images in this review are subject to fair use