I decided to re-read the Harry Potter series for the 21st time. My first time in about 2 to 3 years, so I had lost a lot of memory of these books. Of course, if I was gonna re-read the books, I was obviously going to rewatch the movies. So here they are, my reviews and analysis of the first two Harry Potter books and their respective movies.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

The Book

The first Harry Potter book has a really big task, it has to set up this wonderful, fantastic, beautiful universe while telling a narratively compelling story. It does this magnificently. Although the book is riddled with plot holes and inconsistencies, you tend to forgive it because of all its merits. It is a genuinely great read and holds up all these years in the future.

The Film

★★★½ 

Rewatched 17 Apr, 2020

This movie is surprisingly longer than I remember it being, at 2 hrs and 30 mins, it’s really a mammoth of a run-time. But it’s actually quite effective in the way it sets up this amazing world. The child acting isn’t as bad as people make it out to be, Daniel Radcliffe is actually quite good for most of it. The adult actors are great! Some other things that I really enjoyed were the brilliant score by John Williams and the production design which blew me away even watching it for the umpteenth time. The CGI doesn’t hold up at all and looks quite hilarious. Some of the writing is shoddy in the sense that it includes some lines from the book but not all so it makes things quite stupid out of context. As a film, it has a lot to achieve and I think it achieves it quite well, even if it has some bumps along the road.