Three high-spirited, clear-eyed kids populate the center of the movie. Daniel Radcliffe
plays Harry Potter, he with the round glasses, and like all of the
young characters he looks much as I imagined him, but a little older. He
once played David Copperfield on the BBC, and whether Harry will be the
hero of his own life in this story is much in doubt at the beginning.

Deposited
as a foundling on a suburban doorstep, Harry is raised by his aunt and
uncle as a poor relation, then summoned by a blizzard of letters to
become a student at Hogwarts School, an Oxbridge for magicians. Our
first glimpse of Hogwarts sets the tone for the movie's special effects.
Although computers can make anything look realistic, too much realism
would be the wrong choice for "Harry Potter," which is a story in which
everything, including the sets and locations, should look a little made
up. The school, rising on ominous Gothic battlements from a moonlit
lake, looks about as real as Xanadu in "Citizen Kane," and its
corridors, cellars and great hall, although in some cases making use of
real buildings, continue the feeling of an atmospheric book
illustration. At Hogwarts, Harry makes two friends and an enemy. The
friends are Hermione Granger (Emma Watson), whose merry face and tangled curls give Harry nudges in the direction of lightening up a little, and Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint), all pluck, luck and untamed talents. The enemy is Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton), who will do anything, and plenty besides, to be sure his house places first at the end of the year.

The
story you either already know, or do not want to know. What is good to
know is that the adult cast, a who's who of British actors, play their
roles more or less as if they believed them. There is a broad style of
British acting, developed in Christmas pantomimes, which would have
been fatal to this material; these actors know that, and dial down to
just this side of too much. Watch Alan Rickman drawing out his words until they seem ready to snap, yet somehow staying in character. Maggie Smith,
still in the prime of Miss Jean Brodie, is Prof. Minerva McGonagall,
who assigns newcomers like Harry to one of the school's four houses. Richard Harris is headmaster Dumbledore, his beard so long that in an Edward Lear poem, birds would nest in it. Robbie Coltrane
is the gamekeeper, Hagrid, who has a record of misbehavior and a way of
saying very important things and then not believing that he said them.

Computers
are used, exuberantly, to create a plausible look in the
gravity-defying action scenes. Readers of the book will wonder how the
movie visualizes the crucial game of Quidditch. The game, like so much
else in the movie, is more or less as I visualized it, and I was
reminded of Stephen King's theory that writers practice a form of
telepathy, placing ideas and images in the heads of their readers. (The
reason some movies don't look like their books may be that some
producers don't read them.) If Quidditch is a virtuoso sequence, there
are other set pieces of almost equal wizardry. A chess game with
life-size, deadly pieces. A room filled with flying keys. The pit of
tendrils, already mentioned, and a dark forest where a loathsome
creature threatens Harry but is scared away by a centaur. And the dark
shadows of Hogwarts library, cellars, hidden passages and dungeons,
where an invisibility cloak can keep you out of sight but not out of
trouble.

During "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," I was
pretty sure I was watching a classic, one that will be around for a long
time, and make many generations of fans. It takes the time to be good.
It doesn't hammer the audience with easy thrills, but cares to tell a
story, and to create its characters carefully. Like "The Wizard of Oz,"
"Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory," "Star Wars" and "E.T.," it
isn't just a movie but a world with its own magical rules. And some
excellent Quidditch players.

Three high-spirited, clear-eyed kids populate the center of the movie. Daniel Radcliffe
plays Harry Potter, he with the round glasses, and like all of the
young characters he looks much as I imagined him, but a little older. He
once played David Copperfield on the BBC, and whether Harry will be the
hero of his own life in this story is much in doubt at the beginning.

Deposited
as a foundling on a suburban doorstep, Harry is raised by his aunt and
uncle as a poor relation, then summoned by a blizzard of letters to
become a student at Hogwarts School, an Oxbridge for magicians. Our
first glimpse of Hogwarts sets the tone for the movie's special effects.
Although computers can make anything look realistic, too much realism
would be the wrong choice for "Harry Potter," which is a story in which
everything, including the sets and locations, should look a little made
up. The school, rising on ominous Gothic battlements from a moonlit
lake, looks about as real as Xanadu in "Citizen Kane," and its
corridors, cellars and great hall, although in some cases making use of
real buildings, continue the feeling of an atmospheric book
illustration. At Hogwarts, Harry makes two friends and an enemy. The
friends are Hermione Granger (Emma Watson), whose merry face and tangled curls give Harry nudges in the direction of lightening up a little, and Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint), all pluck, luck and untamed talents. The enemy is Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton), who will do anything, and plenty besides, to be sure his house places first at the end of the year.

The
story you either already know, or do not want to know. What is good to
know is that the adult cast, a who's who of British actors, play their
roles more or less as if they believed them. There is a broad style of
British acting, developed in Christmas pantomimes, which would have
been fatal to this material; these actors know that, and dial down to
just this side of too much. Watch Alan Rickman drawing out his words until they seem ready to snap, yet somehow staying in character. Maggie Smith,
still in the prime of Miss Jean Brodie, is Prof. Minerva McGonagall,
who assigns newcomers like Harry to one of the school's four houses. Richard Harris is headmaster Dumbledore, his beard so long that in an Edward Lear poem, birds would nest in it. Robbie Coltrane
is the gamekeeper, Hagrid, who has a record of misbehavior and a way of
saying very important things and then not believing that he said them.

Computers
are used, exuberantly, to create a plausible look in the
gravity-defying action scenes. Readers of the book will wonder how the
movie visualizes the crucial game of Quidditch. The game, like so much
else in the movie, is more or less as I visualized it, and I was
reminded of Stephen King's theory that writers practice a form of
telepathy, placing ideas and images in the heads of their readers. (The
reason some movies don't look like their books may be that some
producers don't read them.) If Quidditch is a virtuoso sequence, there
are other set pieces of almost equal wizardry. A chess game with
life-size, deadly pieces. A room filled with flying keys. The pit of
tendrils, already mentioned, and a dark forest where a loathsome
creature threatens Harry but is scared away by a centaur. And the dark
shadows of Hogwarts library, cellars, hidden passages and dungeons,
where an invisibility cloak can keep you out of sight but not out of
trouble.

During "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," I was
pretty sure I was watching a classic, one that will be around for a long
time, and make many generations of fans. It takes the time to be good.
It doesn't hammer the audience with easy thrills, but cares to tell a
story, and to create its characters carefully. Like "The Wizard of Oz,"
"Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory," "Star Wars" and "E.T.," it
isn't just a movie but a world with its own magical rules. And some
excellent Quidditch players.

But that's just my opinion.

That said, I would agree with Chris except for the existence of Evanna Lynch, who was fantastic as Luna.