Chris Columbus' 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone' (2001)

Well, I've seen the new "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" movie, but I'm still sorting my feelings on it.

The special effects were superb, the casting was excellent, and it was faithful to J.K. Rowling's story. The problem, of course, is that you have to judge the movie on its own merits and not as a version of the book. And that's a task that necessarily is complicated if you've read the book and are familiar with it.

I was disappointed that some of the best lines of the book were absent -- not surprised, given the length of the movie, but disappointed.

The adults did a good job acting, overall; the kids did better at carrying this franchise than Jake Lloyd  did with Star Wars in "The Phantom Menace," but Daniel Radcliffe especially still lacked polish.

John Cleese's role was disappointingly brief. He probably had no more than a minute of walk-on time. That's not surprising, since Nearly Headless Nick has such a small part in the book, but it still seemed like a shame given that this was John Cleese.

The thing that I felt was most lacking was that it seemed like the kids were moving along too quickly. They suspected Snape of treachery without any clear reason to suspect him of duplicity. They picked
up ideas about the Sorcerer's Stone seemingly from thin air, and generally seemed to hurry through the plot.

I was actually quite happy with the cuts they made at the beginning. In a book, it works well to meet the Dursleys first on the day of Voldemort's defeat, and then work our way toward discovering Harry, but it was highly cuttable material, and I'm not sure how well they could have translated it to a visual medium anyway.

I did love the addition of getting Dudley stuck behind the plate glass in the snake display. That was brilliant.

And I was very disappointed that they chose to have Hagrid get Norbert's egg from an Irishman. I can't think of a single good reason to eliminate the "Greek chappie." If there were a triple-headed hound at the gates to Annwn, I could perhaps overlook the transgression, but there's no such beast in any Gaelic myth I've read.

I probably won't see the movie again until it comes out on video next year -- but after a lot of rumination, I think I would have made the following changes:

1. I would not have had Snape wish Harry luck at the quidditch match. Hopelessly out of character.
2. I would have extended the scene in Potions class where Snape belittles Harry to the point that Harry suggests Snape call on Hermione, and Snape takes off five points from Gryffindor for "cheek."
3. Harry, Ron and Hermione should have seen Snape running toward the door where Fluffy is kept.

With those things in place, there would have been a logical reason for the students to dislike Snape and suspect him of trying to steal the Sorcerer's Stone, and there would have been evidence of discord among Harry, Ron and Hermione over her being a know-it-all.

The Norbert stuff needed a little more work. He too obviously was a plot contrivance in the movie, to get everyone detention and then to find a way past Fluffy -- a way they didn't even need, incidentally, since an enchanted harp was left behind -- while in the book Norbert provided a good example of Hagrid's love of monsters. He probably could have been cut entirely to make the movie work more smoothly.