Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

For franchises that have built up an enormous audience, filming sequels back-to-back seems like a smart move to save on production costs and make multiple movies at once, which are virtually guaranteed to be cash cows.  Critters 3 and Critters 4 are probably the best examples of this, but what about the sequels to Back to the Future, The Matrix, and Pirates of the Caribbean?  They range from fine (but nowhere near as good as the original) to implausibly disappointing to damn near unwatchable --- in that order.  Sure, they made money, but --- aside from the huge gambles that were the Kill Bill and Lord of the Rings productions --- this method usually winds up disappointing fans.  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 did a good job of setting the stage, but it felt incomplete...because it was.  Will that mean that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 will suffer the same fate, or will it manage to do what so many series finales fail to accomplish --- end with a bang?

Where were we?  Oh, yes.  Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) and his wizard buddies are on the run from Mister Frowny Face, AKA Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes), and his Frowny minions.  Voldie has broken his soul into seven parts and hidden the parts all over the globe (or, at least England) in six ordinary objects, with Part 7 being in himself.  Why?  This allows him to survive deadly attacks, as long as part of his soul still exists.  In Part 1, Harry, Hermione (Emma Watson), and Ron (Rupert Grint) had managed to find a way to destroy these soul-holders (that's horcruxes, in wizard-speak) and were left with only three to find and destroy before Voldie could be killed for realz.

"No" means no, Voldemort.  Harry doesn't have to "cross wands" with you.

So...they do that.  They wind up back in Hogwarts wizard school because one of the horcruxes is there; Voldie's people learn about this almost immediately, surround the school, and threaten to kill everyone in the school if they do not hand over Potter.  Since this is a tale of good vs. evil, the Order of the Phoenix (the good guys) show up to protect Harry, Hogwarts, and the students against Voldie and his terrible hordes.  In tough times like these, passions flare, characters die, and special effects take center stage.  You want to see some epic wizard battles?  This is the movie to watch.

I cannot believe that Alice Cooper and John Williams didn't collaborate on a re-recording of "School's Out"

The acting in this final Harry Potter is the best in the series in some ways, and emblematic of its recurring problems in others.  I thought Daniel Radcliffe really stepped up in this movie and held his own in several emotional scenes.  Emma Watson was good as usual, and Rupert Grint --- well, he seemed to have a lot fewer lines.  These three aren't unbelievably fantastic, but they do a great job playing their parts and reacting to their stellar supporting cast.  This film finally gives Ralph Fiennes some screen-time, and he makes the most of it; I won't say this is his best work, but he is both deplorable and pitiable as the mustache-twirling (if he had a nose to hang a 'stache on) villain.  Fans have been waiting for a decade to see Voldemort at his worst, and Fiennes doesn't disappoint.  Similarly, Alan Rickman's Snape character was finally given some emotional depth past his irrational hatred of Harry, and it turned out to be a surprisingly effective scene.

The supporting cast, as always, is distinguished, but doesn't get nearly enough attention to do justice to their talent.  Maggie Smith and the young Bonnie Wright get probably the most attention --- and it is well deserved for Smith --- but Michael Gambon, John Hurt, Jason Isaacs, Jim Broadbent, Gary Oldman, David Thewlis, Emma Thompson, Ciaran Hinds, and Robbie Coltrane have precious little to work with.  I get it, I get it...they're taking character parts to participate in this franchise, but it always makes me sad to see so much talent get stuck in bit parts.  On the bright side, Warwick Davis pulled off a dual-role performance pretty well and Helena Bonham Carter was memorable in her small role, once again.  I was disappointed that Tom Felton's performance took a few steps back, making his character seem like the weenie he was four or five years ago; his part was relatively small in the film, but I would have liked a little less slapstick from him.  Perhaps that disappointment is balanced by the surprisingly effective performances in small parts by Evanna Lynch and Matthew Lewis; both have been in the series for years as minor players, but they impressed me with more visible parts here.  Oh, and as a fan of kinetic 90s British cinema, I was happy to see Kelly Macdonald (Trainspotting) and Nick Moran (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels) in small roles.

Matthew Lewis had to fight (and, presumably, lose) for his screen time

While this was never going to be a movie about the acting, it sure was nice to see that the cast wasn't Transformers-bad.  But that's just a pleasant bonus.  This is the movie that was finally going to fulfill the promise of an all-out wizard battle, with the forces of good taking on the hordes of evil.  And you know what?  It totally delivered on that promise.  This is, by far, the most action-packed Harry Potter film and, because it is the logical conclusion of a decade-long story, it feels very organic.  Most of the time, when a movie opts for the "all action" route, the story gets left behind in favor of bloody explosions.  The Deathly Hallows: Part 2 keeps a pretty fast pace, kills boatloads of witches and wizards, but still has many touching character moments.  More important than all that, this movie acts as a ridiculously satisfying conclusion to the series; it's easy enough for casual viewers to understand, but most of the spells and characters and magical creatures are taken from the earlier films, treating longtime fans by adding a layer to the film that is not always explained explicitly in the script.

There are doubtlessly many fans of the book that are upset over some of the changes that director David Yates made to the story.  Get over it, nerds (says the pot).  Film and prose are different mediums, and overly reverential adaptations usually lead to lifeless movies (The Watchmen, anyone?).  I liked the changes and omissions in this film; they worked with what had been established in the earlier movies, and that's what counts.  I have my own issues with parts of the film, of course.  I was hoping to see more creative wizard fights, like the Dumbledore vs. Voldemort battle that ended The Order of the Phoenix.  Sure, the battle scenes were hectic and cool, but in a world with so much potential for creativity, I thought I would see more colorful uses of magic.  The more I think about that, the more disappointed I am.  As for the epilogue...I'm not a huge fan, even though I see the storytelling value of coming full-circle; I think a few more minutes of Harry pondering Snape's motives would have made that final scene truly powerful, but it's still pretty decent, even if it's not my cup of tea.  I'm also not sure how well the two parts of this story will stand up on their own as time goes on; I just re-watched Part 1 this week, so the story was fresh in my mind, but will I eventually go back and watch Part 2 on its own?  I have no idea.

Squiggly lights?  What happened to fire demons, dude?

That is just me nitpicking, though.  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 manages to do an astounding number of things right.  For starters, it's the shortest film in the series, and it spends precious little time with Harry and his friends safe from harm; this is definitely the most exciting movie in the series.  The acting is all good, and there are a number of tear-jerking moments, which is something you rarely see in a film with so much action.  The destruction of Hogwarts was pretty awesome and the characters all looked like they had been fighting in rubble for days.  This film should go down as one of the best final chapters of any franchise.  It was violent, cute, and cathartic in a major way.  Congrats, HP crew.  This is how you tell a satisfying ending.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

As I type this, my wife is counting down the minutes until we catch the final Harry Potter later tonight.  To prepare for the last installment, we re-watched (and I reviewed) the most recent entries in the series, including this film, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.  Sadly, even with me paying close attention, I was unable to find any Prince in this film.

Half-Blood, Half-Funk, and All-Awesome.  And weird.

So, what happens in the sixth Harry Potter film?  Well, after Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) was vindicated at the end of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the wizarding world now accepts that the evil wizard Lord Voldemort is alive and well.  While the good guys are presumably hunting down the baddies, Harry and his friends return to Hogwarts school for another year that will inevitably feature Lord Voldemort trying to kill Harry, once again.  Or...maybe not...?  This time around, it seems that LoVo (as the tabloids call him, probably) has given Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton) an important task; Draco has always been Potter's schoolmate nemesis, but this is the first time he is actually given the opportunity to be EEE-veel.

You can't wash off jerk, Draco

While Draco attempts to perform his nastiness (that somehow involves a cabinet), Harry is busy helping Professor Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) learn about Lord Voldemort.  You see, LoVo is a powerful dark wizard, but even he should have died at least a few times already in this film series; it is up to Harry to gather the secret to LoVo's resilience.  While the two major plots develop, we get the usual look at magical school life, only this time with some teenage romances. 

Snogging: apparently British slang for sniffing each other

One of the reasons I enjoy The Half-Blood Prince is that it mixes things up a bit.  Instead of waiting a whole movie to see exactly how LoVo is going to attack Harry (and fail...again), both sides take the offensive.  Harry and Dumbledore are searching for knowledge, which will indicate a weakness in LoVo's proverbial armor.   We finally get to see a student do something that isn't good when Draco helps LoVo and his cronies, the Death Eaters.  We even get to see Professor Snape (Alan Rickman) acting as a double-agent for Dumbledore when he pretends to be a Death Eater --- or maybe he's a triple-agent that's pretending to be pretending!  Whatever the case, this is a much needed development for Snape in this series, because he has been the Harry Potter equivalent of Red Herring from A Pup Named Scooby-Doo for far too long.

Possibly not a screen-shot

The acting improvements in the series continue in The Half-Blood Prince.  Daniel Radcliffe adds a bit of subtlety to his performance this time around and his "magically lucky" scene performances are pretty amusing, even if he appears to just be really, really high.  Emma Watson continues to be the best young actor in the cast; I thought she did a good job with her romantic subplot.  Rupert Grint continues to be an ugly red head, but he appears to be more than willing to look silly on camera and his comic performances continue to improve here.  He's still not much of a dramatic actor, but that may just be because I hate looking at his face.

L-R: Daniel, Emma, Ugly, Tom, Alan

Tom Felton was pretty good as the nasty Draco, but his ineffective hoodlum role from the earlier movies contrasts sharply with his brooding/sulking in this film; I will admit that the face-stomping he delivers toward the start of the movie is the coolest thing Draco ever did.  Bonnie Wright emerged as Harry's love interest in this movie; she has had small parts in each of the other films, but this was her biggest role to date.  She was pretty decent with the adolescent awkwardness, but even her newly expanded role didn't give her much to do.

The adult cast is its solid self again.  Both Michael Gambon and Alan Rickman's characters get much more screen time in this film than ever before, and each one has a few very nice moments on screen.  The requisite new cast member is Jim Broadbent, who is always a treat to watch.  His character is a little weaselly, but Broadbent does a good job exuding a blend of ego and cowardice.  Helena Bonham Carter returns as the crazed villain, Bellatrix, and she cackles her way through the movie.  Ralph Fiennes, as the evil Lord Voldemort...is actually not in this movie at all.  Huh.  I had to double-check his IMDb page to verify that, but it's true.  The rest of the adult cast --- Maggie Smith, Robbie Coltrane, Julie Walters, David Thewlis, Warwick Davis, etc. --- are solid supporting actors, even if they only get a few minutes on camera.

"Give me an L...!"

There's nothing wrong with the look and feel of this movie, either.  David Yates directed another solid movie with excellent pacing, a nice balance of comedy and drama, and a great instinct on what subplots from the novel to not include in the film.  There are a few moments where I wondered why the wizards didn't have a magical work-around in a particular situation, but I generally liked what he did and the performances he got from the cast.

Wizards haven't figured out an umbrella spell yet?

I have to admit that I am not the biggest fan of this story, though.  Yes, it has a pretty sweet Empire Strikes Back ending, but it's not enough.  There isn't nearly enough build-up with the mystery of who the Half-Blood Prince was, so when his identity is revealed, there is no pay off.  It felt like the movie hadn't even mentioned the sub-titular character for about an hour when he steps forward and identifies himself; that's nice, buddy, but the movie stopped caring about your code-name a while ago.  The biggest flaw in the story (which caused my wife to hate this movie when we first watched it) involves the use to Draco's evil cabinet.  SPOILER ALERT: Using the cabinet to bring Death Eaters into Hogwarts is a pretty cool idea.  What do they do when they arrive, after two hours of waiting to see what they will do?  They heckle Draco, watch Dumbledore die, and break some dinnerware.  And that's it.  The most bloodthirsty, murdering witches and wizards on the planet have full reign of a school full of frightened children and only a handful of teachers --- most of whom are elderly --- and they leave them all unscathed.  They don't even try to wreck the school.  This is by far the most unnecessary subplot in the Harry Potter series, and the long build-up for it just makes it more frustrating.  I understand that Yates didn't want to include the wizard fights that are featured at the end of this book, since the final movie will have plenty o' wizard fights, but that's still pretty lame.  I was also less than thrilled that we were being subjected to the ridiculously scored wizard sport, quidditch, again.  On the bright side, it played a relatively small part of the film.  I'm still not certain why Ron is the only player I can recall in the series that wears an old-timey football helmet to play.

Ron waits for the short wizard-bus

Even with plot flaws, The Half-Blood Prince is still a pretty entertaining movie.  I think it has some of the best acting in the series, as well as some of the cooler visuals.  I was disappointed by the story, though, which downgrades it from "awesome" to "still pretty good."

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Quick, name your favorite third installment of a film franchise.  Yeah...it takes a little bit of thought, doesn't it?  Aside from Die Hard With a Vengeance and Army of Darkness, is there a great third movie in a series?  If you can think of another great #3, leave it in the comments (I can think of two others).  These movies usually end up putting the lid on the franchise coffin, instead of improving upon the established formula.  After two successful (but similar) movies about magical children, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban changes the tone a bit and delves into darker territory, with a tale about betrayal and murder.  That sounds about right for a family film, doesn't it?

Like the last two films, Azkaban covers an entire school year for Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) and his friends, Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson).  Also like the last two films, the plot is split between the ongoing struggle between Harry and the forces of evil wizard extraordinaire, Lord Voldemort, and Harry's smaller-scale problems at school.  As Harry prepares to return to Hogwart's wizard boarding school, he notices wanted posters for a man named Sirius Black (Gary Oldman) everywhere he looks.  Black, a disciple of Voldemort, had just broken out of the super-secure wizard gulag, Azkaban; this is a big deal for the wizarding world because Black was the first-ever escapee of the prison and also because his crimes were especially heinous.  Not only did he blow up a fellow wizard, Peter Pettigrew (Timothy Spall), with only a finger escaping total incineration, but Sirius Black was the man who led Voldemort to Harry Potter's parents on the night they were murdered.  Out of prison, it just makes sense that his first move would be to kill Harry for his master.  When Harry learns Black's history, he welcomes the fight and declares his intention to kill Black.  Apparently, having evil wizards try to kill you every year can make thirteen-year-olds get a little aggressive.

The other plot line follows Harry's progressive immersion in the world of magic.  As a side effect of Black's escape, Azkaban guards (called Dementors) arrive, looking for Black.  Dementors are not people, but soul-sucking monsters that find Harry a particularly tasty morsel.  Harry takes lessons on how to deflect these creatures from his new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Remus Lupin (David Thewlis).  Like Harry's last two DADA teachers (villains in the last two films), Lupin has a secret that plays a part in the film's climax.  Also playing a part is the school groundskeeper, Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane), who earned a promotion to teacher.  He introduced a hippogriff (a magical half-horse and half-eagle creature) to some students and, despite it being very friendly to Harry, it injured a student, perennial Potter bully Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton).  As such, the animal receives an execution date.  I wonder...will these seemingly dissimilar plots ever coalesce in time for the film's end?

At the time of its publication, the book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, was the longest in the series.  Since the last two films went over two hours to cover everything in the books, it became necessary to cut the novel into something more digestible in movie form.  As such, Azkaban is the first Harry Potter film to take liberties with the source text.  That's great news for someone like me, who liked the first two films, but felt that they could have done more to adapt to the film genre.  That means that this film is more plot-driven that the others.  The other big change is Alfonso Cuaron's assumption of the director's role; aside from making a very good cutting of the story (in my opinion) for the screenplay, Cuaron played with the film's color palette, opting for more blues and a general washed-out feel, which I thought matched the story's being-hunted-by-a-murderer plot.  The DVD special features also point out an instance of Cuaron's dealings with his teenage cast; he asked the three main actors to write an essay about their characters, and the responses he got were surprisingly in-line with the work the characters themselves would have done: Watson wrote a fifteen-page paper, Radcliffe wrote a few pages, and Grint didn't do his homework.  Well, I laughed, anyway.

The acting in this film is a marked improvement over The Chamber of Secrets.  Daniel Radcliffe not only looked the part, with the most Harry Potter-ish hair of any of the movies, but his casual acting skills showed a lot of growth.  He doesn't quite nail every emotion (anger seems a little out of his grasp), but it's still a big step.  Emma Watson is, once again, the most natural actor of the three, but this movie gives her less screen time and, thus, less to do.  Rupert Grint manages to make ugly faces whenever he's supposed to be frightened, which is often.  I wasn't terribly impressed with David Thewlis' Lupin, but that has more to do with the CGI used on his character and my own impression of the character from the book than any particular shortcoming in his performance; I thought he would be more...raggedy, I guess.  And I'm still not certain why his CGI-aided moments went with such a lanky character design instead of the more traditional bulk.  Gary Oldman, one of the great actors of the 90s, took this role to make some money, but his performance is still pretty good; I loved the design for his character, from the hair and tattoos to his emaciated body.  Much of Oldman's presence in the film comes from wanted posters, but they are pretty awesome, just the same.  Tom Felton's turn as Draco is far less sinister than in previous movies; here he is used as comic relief instead of a legitimate rival to Harry.  Michael Gambon replaced Richard Harris as Hogwarts headmaster Dumbledore, and his performance had the subtle mischief I felt was lacking in Harris' performances.  Emma Thompson and Timothy Spall make their Potter debuts here in limited performances and cast staples Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman, and Robbie Coltrane all do fine work in their small supporting roles.

Personally, I think this third installment surpasses the first two Harry Potters easily.  The acting is better, the pace of the film is better, and several details are glossed over in favor of a more seamless narrative.  Not only were the individual acting performances better than in previous films, but I think the more casual scenes showing the kids goofing off and having fun felt natural an unforced, which was a huge departure from the I'm-waiting-for-you-to-stop-talking-so-I-can-deliver-my-lines performances from the last film.  This movie also helped build the budding romance between Hermione and Ron a bit, something the other films left on the cutting room floor.

Not every choice was well made, though.  The Jamaican shrunken head in the early stages of the film was just obnoxious, for starters.  There were a few instances where the token black student at Hogwarts makes some reference to Black (as in Sirius) being up to no good, or how he could be anywhere, or whatever --- I'm not a racist, but unintentional racism makes me giggle.  I mean, really?  You couldn't find any other actor to make negative comments about "Black"?  Those aren't major complaints, though.  The one thing holding this movie back is the source material.  There is a plot element that is revealed in the final third of the movie (to be fair, it is foreshadowed) that essentially acts as a deus ex machina.  As such, the final third of the movie can seem somewhat contrived, but that is what the book offered, so I guess the filmmakers were kind of stuck.  Still, even with the contrived ending, this is the best of the bunch so far.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

"Second verse / Same as the first / A little bit louder / And a little bit worse!"  Those lyrics belong to any number of children's songs, none of which I can recall right now, and I felt them oddly appropriate for the second installment in the Harry Potter franchise.  Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets follows Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Hermione (Emma Watson), and that ginger kid (Rupert Grint) as they try to uncover the annual Bad Thing that is plaguing Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry this year.

It begins with a house elf, Dobby (CGI voiced by Toby Jones), trying to prevent Harry from going back to school.  Dobby's master is planning some mean stuff and Dobby wants to help Harry Potter; the only problem is that house elves cannot say bad things about their owners, so he cannot give Harry an explicit warning.  Thanks, Dobby, you're worthless.  And you remind me of Fergie.  Harry is eventually reunited with his friends and returns to school.  However, someone is doing weird stuff at Hogwarts.  Messages are being written on the walls with blood, claiming that the heir of Slytherin has returned and opened the Chamber of Secrets.  If that makes no sense to you, I suggest you read the book because I don't want to get into the history of Hogwarts right now.  Along with the messages on the wall, students, pets and ghosts are being found petrified, with no clues as to what could be the culprit.  I guess it's up to Harry and friends to solve the mystery of the haunted amusement park!  I mean, discover the Chamber of Secrets and the, um, secrets it holds.

So what does Harry Potter 2.0 have to offer?  Well, it gives the villainous Malfoy family more screen time.  Draco (Tom Felton) and his father, Lucius (Jasoc Isaacs), are suitably insufferable, and both are welcome foils to the do-gooding Potter crew.  Lucius, in particular, is nice and evil.  We meet the evil Voldemort again and learn some of his history.  We get to see more of Ginny Weasley (Bonnie Wright), who will be important in later movies; Wright's performance isn't great, but it's difficult to be hard on a ten year-old.  Well, it's really not, but it feels mean.  This film also introduces the Whomping Willow and polyjuice potion, both of which will be used in later movies.  And that's about it.  Huh.  I guess this movie just sets up later installments more than anything else.

Chris Columbus directs this movie, as he did the first, and the results are basically the same.  He succeeds with the film's biggest obstacle: child actors.  The kids have gotten a little better at acting, although Emma Watson is still clearly the best out of the bunch.  The supporting cast is again stellar, with Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith, Richard Harris and Robbie Coltrane all maintaining the same high quality they did the last time out.  The addition of Kenneth Branagh as an egotistical teacher was a wonderful idea, and he is perfect in the part.  The special effects look better this time around and the little details that were not captured in the first film are done right in this one.  Honestly, since this story is so similar to the first movie, it feels like they just smoothed out the rough edges and did the same thing as last time, but better.

That is the big problem, of course.  The Chamber of Secrets is handicapped by its similarity to The Sorcerer's Stone.  I think it is obvious that this is the better film; the acting is better, the threat is more frightening, the special effects are better, and we're not wasting time with an origin story.  However, the plot structure (Harry sees a problem, Harry gets educated on wizarding stuff, Harry fights Voldemort) is annoyingly similar to the first movie.  This is also true of the book, but I actually like the movie better because you can see the young cast's growth as actors.  Is it fair to criticize a movie for being similar to its prequel, when the source material has the same problem?  Yes, it is.  Nevertheless, this movie does a great job at capturing the wonder and possibility of a magical world, and doing so in a way that will appeal to children.  If the story was a little better (read: less similar to Volume 1), this would be a clear classic.  As it stands, though, it is still in good company.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

This could have been an awful movie, you know.  It requires several child actors to carry the dramatic load at an age when only prodigies are good actors.  Not everyone is a Culkin, you know.  It's based on a successful book series, but it deals heavily in imagination; the proverbial magic could have been lost in translation (see: Dungeons and Dragons).  The adult actors could have been miscast, or even incompetent.  Not all adults share the screen well with children, like Michael Madsen in the Free Willy movies.  The studio could scrimp on the budget and get laughable special effects, ruining an otherwise plausible film idea.  X-Men Origins: Wolverine springs to mind as an example, although the effects weren't the only problems there. 

This film manages to sidestep these issues and successfully launch the most successful film franchise ever.  This is even more impressive when you consider a) there are more Star Wars movies than Harry Potters (so far) and b) the cast has remained almost unchanged throughout.

Do we really need to recap the origin story for Harry Potter?  In England, apparently there are a lot of wizards and witches, living fairly normal lives (if more magical than ours), working and going to school and the like.  Now, if that seems unlikely to you, consider this: there must be a reason people live on an island that isn't tropical, right?  Alright, then.  Just as there are normal, pleasant wizards, there are criminal wizards.  The biggest baddie of the all (think Adolf Stalin with a Merlin cap) was Lord Voldemort.  In his ongoing attempt to subdue all opposition to his terror, Voldemort attacked and killed the parents of the infant Harry Potter.  However, when Voldemort tried to kill the baby --- what's the emoticon for magical post-birth baby murder?  Oh, yeah... : ( --- something strange happened; Voldemort was mortally wounded and Harry survived with only a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead to show for it.  Harry was raised by non-magical relatives until his eleventh birthday, when the world of magic was revealed to him for the first time and he enrolled in Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

This, the first in the Harry Potter series, focuses on (appropriately enough) his first year at Hogwart's wizarding school.  Since it takes place over a whole school year, there is a main plot and then a lot of time spent with Harry encountering magical stuff for the first time.  The main plot deals with Harry and his friends, Ron and Hermoine, trying to figure out what mysterious item is being protected within Hogwarts and who is after it.  Well, it turns out that the item is the Philosopher's Stone, which can create an elixir that prolongs life.  Who would want a thing like that?  If you guessed Mr. Frowny Emoticon Face, you'd be right.  Once they figure that out, Harry and his friends try to prevent Voldemort from taking the Philosopher's Stone.

A lot of this movie is spent showing the viewer how different and wondrous the wizarding world is.  There are hundreds of minor examples of magical use throughout, from paintings with animate subjects to broom riding.  Overall, they did a good job.  The special effects take charge here and, while they pale in comparison to the effects in later sequels, they generally look pretty nice.  There are a few poorly designed moments here and there, but nothing major.  Sure, the Quidditch field looks like it is at least sixty miles away from the nearest building, but nitpicking the realism of a movie starring wizards is silly.

The casting in this film is fantastic.  The supporting cast of Richard Harris, Maggie Smith, Robbie Coltrane, Warwick Davis, John Hurt, John Cleese, Alan Rickman, and David Bradley could not be much better.  The actors suit the characters from the book and, while this isn't Superman-level supporting star power, it's pretty close.  The established actors all perform well and the children...well, they're kids.  Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint (Harry and Ron Weasley, respectively) did a good job of looking surprised, I guess.  They're kids and they weren't Jake Lloyd-terrible, so there's no harm done.  However, Emma Watson, as Hermione Granger, actually had flashes of good acting sprinkled throughout her performance.  Regardless, all three are visual matches to the book's characters, and that's usually good enough to recommend a child actor.

While the casting was fantastic, the writing and directing was only okay.  Yes, they stuck to the book's script almost verbatim, but that's a problem in and of itself.  Instead of taking liberties with some of the small details and focusing on more interesting visual magics, the movie misses some potentially awesome moments.  As far as the acting goes, Chris Columbus did a good job with the supporting cast and a very respectable one with the main kids.  He skimped a little when it came to the minor child characters.  I find it odd that commonplace things like magically appearing food, or paintings with animated subjects would hold much fascination for students that grew up around magic.  They should not have gasped, ooh-ed or ahh-ed.  Admittedly, those are minor complaints for minor problems in an otherwise fun family movie.