Rating: 
Summary: Amazing, not what I expected at all
Review: Usually when a film get's all the publicity and hype this one did it turns out dissappointing, especially when it's a children's movie. I can honestly say I didn't expect much out of it, I know the books are meant for kids which didn't help my opinion. Now I am secretly anticipating the second film.
Although the target audience is 8years plus, I strongly feel that people of all ages will, and have been enjoying this film immensly. Be sure to get the widescreen version however, in the full screen, you are really missing a lot of visuals!
Rating: 
Summary: HP ALL THE WAY!
Review: This movie was awesome!The Quidditch match looked real and i loved when Harry put his wand up the trolls nose. "EWWWW! TROLL BOGIES!" lol
Rating:
Summary: A great Movie (or, How I became a Potterhead!)
Review: Prior to seeing the movie on DVD, I had never seen this movie in the theater, nor read any of J.K. Rowling's books in the series. The movie was great. It follows the book as religiously as possible, particularly for the genre. The special effects were nearly perfect and story line held my interest, enough to go back and buy and read all four of the Harry Potter books. I am not only looking forward to the characters' next term at Hogwarts', but I am looking forward to the next movie in the series as well.
Rating:
Summary: a grrrrrrrrrrrrrrreat movie
Review: This is one of the best and well thought up movies ever made. Daniel Radcliffe was terrific.
The movie is about a boy who finds out he has magical powerers and gets sent to a school called hogwarts. He also finds out he famous for surviving Avada Kendavra (Killing Curse) fron Voldemort (he-who-must-not-be-named). He meets Hermione and Ron. They then have many adventures together like an encounter with the three-headed dog fluffy.
the only glitch in this movie was where was the dueling club?
I an looking forward to harry potter 2 coming out November 15! 2002 (one day before #1
Rating:
Summary: A great movie!
Review: This is a wonderful movie for all ages.I highly reccomend this movie.:)
Rating: 
Summary: You're kidding me, right?
Review: I love these books...I can read them in a night, and I have done so at least 5 times with each. But seriously, this movie [disappointed]! The choice of actors was very agreeable, but the movie was too condensed. Humor, depth and spirit was lost as the director tried to stick play by play to the plot. It is not the plot of Harry Potter that makes it so good...its the interactions between the characters, their dialogue and friendship. The movie ignored that. Special effects just made me laugh; the troll was so bad. The movie actually bored me to death. This is no masterpiece!
Rating: 
Summary: too much hype!!!
Review: After all the,(Oh this movie is the best!, best thing I have ever seen!) I was really let down. Yes the special effects were great (that's the only reason it got 3 stars from me!)but as far as "the greatest story ever put to film" is quite the miss quote.
Rating:
Summary: Yeah!! It's Harry Potter!!
Review: Not only did the movie stay true for the most part to the books...it was so sweet to see the book come to life and feel that it's somewhat I imagined. Yeah!! People can think alike. I loved the books..read them before I finally saw the movie, and seeing the movie..with friends and family just gets better and better each time. I so am in love with Harry Potter.
Rating:
Summary: starts well but can't sustain itself
Review: I must admit right up front that I have never read the J.K. Rowling novel on which "Harry Potter: The Sorcerer's Stone" is based. As a result, I come to the movie "cold" as it were, being neither a full-fledged aficionado nor an inveterate denigrator of this phenomenally popular book series that, in the past few years, has taken the literary world by storm. Thus, I will not be able to say to what degree Chris Columbus' handsomely designed film adaptation does or does not do justice to its source. All I can say is how the film struck someone like myself who comes to the material fresh and without expectations of any kind. Well, the verdict, I must say, is a decidedly mixed one, so please allow me to elaborate.Let me state, at the outset, that the movie starts off splendidly. We are introduced to the infant Harry Potter as he is mysteriously dropped off one night at the home of his maternal aunt and uncle in suburban England. We quickly move ahead in time to find Harry, now aged 11, living a sort of male Cinderella existence, mistreated and overlooked by both his surrogate parents and Harry's precocious, spoiled brat cousin, appropriately named Dudley. In the early stretches, the film does a superb job subtly injecting the excitement of magic into a real world setting. There is also quite a bit of wry humor as Harry begins to slowly awaken to the fact that he has these strange and inexplicable powers to manipulate the elements of his world to his own advantage. The film retains its spirit of fun as Harry, led by the mysterious but lovably burly Gamekeeper Rubeus Hagrid, journeys to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to learn the tools of the trade towards which his eccentric destiny is leading him (his parents were also witches, killed by the evil wizard, Voldemort, who obviously has designs on Potter himself). The preparations for Harry's enrollment in school (i.e. purchasing a magic wand) and the attempt to find his way to this magic hidden land are executed with fine, deft strokes, and Columbus keeps the movie blithely bouncing along at just the right momentum and speed. Harry's introduction to the school itself is well done as well, as he meets an assortment of colorful characters (both faculty members and schoolmates) and boggles at the amusement park-like atmosphere he finds there, with an imaginative surprise seemingly lurking around ever corner. Yet not too long after we hit the school, something seems to go out of "Harry Potter." Perhaps the anticipation raised by the first half of the film leads us to expect too much, but, if the truth be told, the storytellers don't seem to have thought much about what to do with Harry once they get him to his destination. Though we like Potter's two chums, Ron and Hermione, and a number of the faculty members, the adventures Harry ends up encountering while at the school seem rather tame, bland and ordinary when you get right down to it. The monsters the writers have dreamed up for him to conquer aren't particularly interesting or intriguing and the plotting itself lacks excitement and suspense. In fact, structurally, the film seems more like a series of elaborate set pieces designed more to show off the special effects than to provide a unified narrative that builds and grows to a cumulative impact. Even worse is that much of the ribald humor of the earlier part disappears as well. Had more of that dry British wit we are treated to in the initial stages been carried all the way through the film, "Harry Potter" might not have come across as quite so flat and attenuated as it does. On the positive side, Daniel Radcliffe gives a superb performance as Harry, capturing the innate goodness, wide-eyed innocence, and no-nonsense practicality of the character he's been called upon to play. He makes of Harry a very real, very recognizable and very likable young boy. Radcliffe is more than matched in performance by Rupert Grint and Emma Watson as Ron and Hermione, Harry's two finely drawn companions in adventure. It's a pleasure, too, to see the wonderful Maggie Smith doing her Miss Jean Brodie bit again after all these years. No one can convey the brittle starchiness of the English schoolmarm better than she. "Harry Potter" is also a beautiful looking film, thanks to outstanding cinematography, production design and art direction. So there you have it: as I said earlier, a decidedly mixed bag of virtues and drawbacks. Those already enamored of little Harry Potter will probably balk at my carping. Those already driven mad by Potter-mania may think I am too indulgent in my overall assessment. But for one who feels little personal stake in the Harry Potter deification/demonization battle, I must say that this is a pretty good film that, I suspect, could have been much better.
Rating:
Summary: A Christian perspective on an engrossing fable
Review: Harry Potter is a simply charming, exciting, and wholesome old-fashioned entertainment for children and adults alike. Christians (especially fundamentalists) decried the books when they came out, and then the film, but such hysteria betrays utter ignorance of what Potter is about, and where its roots lie. It stands in an ancient tradition of story-telling, with the familiar imagery of monsters and magic being used to illustrate the struggle between good and evil. At its core is a message that is truly Christian in spirit. Potter has humble beginnings, growing up with his aunt and uncle who reject and despise him, before on his 11th birthday discovering that invested in him are magical powers that most children only dream of. From there he is taken to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where he must learn to use his powers responsibly and morally. Like Christ, Potter is faced at every turn with the temptation to misuse the powers he has been granted, to befriend evil and use his abilities for his own, selfish gain. His journey culminates in a final battle in which he faces evil head on and, in a fiery climax, laden with infernal imagery, he must decide whether to put his own desires (however legitimate and heartfelt they may be) above the good of others. The virtues of self-sacrifice, honour, and love clearly (and predictably, of course, but that is not the point) emerge the victors in this oft-told story of war between good and evil. How shallow must one be not to be able to see, beneath the trappings of mythology, magic and folklore, that this is the kind of tale every child wants to hear, and ought to hear? Potter's pilgrimage is one that begins with childish fascination with magical powers, but goes on to show us that power is not merely a toy, but is a gift which carries with it responsibility and duty; power means nothing and is worth nothing when it is wielded apart from love. As St Paul wrote, 'If I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing' (1 Corinthians 13:2). I asked myself what made Potter into such a hero. He is hardly any more interesting as a character than his peers: the presumptuous Hermoine Granger; Potter's unassuming best friend, Ron Weasley; and the dastardly Draco Malfoy. On the contrary, Potter is rather bland as a character, and there are far more curious traits to be found in others. He does, however, exemplify all that is good (even though he might be found ambiguous in some regards, but this is a staple of good story-telling). He is an underdog who, in finding that he has been given a precious gift, also finds justice and compensation for the way he has been treated. And it is a gift which he uses in the right way. The character of Harry Potter is no hazardous doorway into occultism and wizardry (as if Rowling's creation bore anything other than a very superficial resemblance to real witchcraft anyway); rather he is a role model in whom parents and teachers can have confidence. He is a hero, and his popularity is proof that goodness and virtue are still what people (children most of all) value, admire, and want to emulate. The tale is told with great excitement, awe and invention. Amongst a wonderful cast, Alan Rickman stands out as the creepily disconcerting Snape. As an exhilarating and enchanting adventure, even aside from the positive message conveyed, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is marvellous.
|
