Harry Potter and the Sorcerer´s/Philosopher´s Stone Movie Review

Harry Potter is one of the most popular franchises of all time, so is no surprise when you look at the overall numbers of sold movie tickets and seeing just how high they are; it matches that of big franchises like "Star Wars" and "James Bond 007".

So I have recently decided to look at every movie lunched from Harry Potter and I will be talking about each one of them, so consider this a marathon!

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Let´s start off with the first movie... "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer´s Stone" or it´s original name "Philosopher´s Stone" (Why change names I don´t get it); the title character is our protagonist and in this movie he discovers he is a wizard, so he is then invited to go to the most recognize school of magic, Howarts... and there, all sorts of things happen, the movie on it´s own it´s very good.

Of course the films are based on the hit book series written by JK Rowling, I will admit I never read the books except for Order of the Phenix and no other after that...

I like the world of magic and the Howarts school itself is very interesting, The fact that Harry himself is an outcast in the world where he discovers that he belongs later in the movie, makes him very likable, you find yourself connecting with him has the movie progress; thanks to the directing and the writing in general.

The special effects are beginning to show their age by today´s standards, the CG in the movie is really glaring when you see it, back then it looked great but now it´s really loosing it´s touch. The child actors are alright, Daniel Radcliffe does seem a little stiff in this movie but the problem is that despite his somewhat natural performance there is just too many times where he shows little emotions compared to Emma Watson or Rupert Grint; but he was a kid so it´s forgiven... child actors can be pretty hard to work with (I know that by experience).

John Williams, the composer behind themes for movies like Star Wars, Superman, Indiana Jones, ET, etc...

made the iconic theme for this movie has well, and is the theme that remained for the rest of the series even after he left.

I think is also import to remark that the director Christopher Columbus was the perfect choice to direct this movie, simply because in many of his past project he has shown he is very versatile with  "friendly" pictures and having a very unique sense of humor, but knows how to treat his own audience and knows when to slowdown and for this film in particular, he was just the man to make a proper introduction to the franchise in movie form no doubt.

I liked this movie, I still believe is a very good stand alone film, I am certain of that after watching it again now after almost 13 years later... I would suggest watching just this one if you are not interested in the whole series; It´s fun, colorful, with good characters and a good story.