Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone Movie Review

Okay, Potterheads, let me join you! Good books and good movies? I'm in.

Title: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Genre: Adventure, Family, Fantasy
Director: Chris Columbus
Based on: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
IMDb rating: 7,5/10
Rotten tomatoes rating: 80%
My rating: I don't know? Really really good?

You know why the Harry Potter movies, the Hunger Games movies, and the Fault in our Stars work and Divergent and the Maze Runner series' adaptations don't? I have a theory... It's called 'authenticity'. No, seriously Hollywood, why do you think we always say the books are better? We loved the book, so I don't understand why you'd change it so much. Those were the good days, when the movies and the books still matched. Please, try to advertise YA a bit better.



I enjoyed this movie a lot. It is not as good as the book, but it captures the feeling of the story very well. It's an older movie, which you most certainly notice, but it made me happy and gives a good idea of what the world looks like. Because of the magic, the books are sometimes hard to picture for me. What I appreciated most about this movie, was how true it stays to the book. No weird unnecessary changing of the plot or dumping in and ripping out at random.

What I loved:
-The casting. Okay, I never really got the chance to pick my own faces, because Harry Potter is so unavoidable on the internet. Still, the actors fit well with their characters. Malfoy looks mean (I'm trying to use 'nice' words when reviewing a kids' movie), Hermione look like Hermione, Ron looks Ron-ish, Hagrid looks like a friendly giant, McGonagall looks strict but not evil, Snape looks terrifying, and so on.
-The chess board. It looks so good!
-The owls are adorable.
-Professor Quirrell. Ugh, he's an evil guy (language), but at least he looks stupid. I love when he screams, "Troll in the dungeon!" and falls flat on his face. I don't know why, but it makes me smile.
-Basically most of the movie.

What I did not love:
-Voldemort has a nose. Isn't he supposed to be noseless? The book says he has slits for nostrils.
-The end battle in general. When Harry is trying to hold on to the stone in the book, you feel him losing strength and fighting to go on. In the movie, Quirrell just crumbles into a thousand dusty pieces and Voldemort floats away. No worries, Harry, you're fine! I missed the tension.
-There was no full-grown dragon. Now, I can't really blame them. Even in GoT they avoid showing you too many dragons. So I didn't expect Hagrid's pet dragon to be present, but I'd have liked to see him.