SPOILERS (point by point movie review)

[cassandraclaire73 at yahoo.com]

This is an almost scene - by -scene commentary on the film, so if you 
don't want to know...don't read it. I saw it yesterday in NYC at a 
press screening, so...

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It is very hard to judge this movie objectively. As a passionate fan 
of the books, every detail and every word are ingrained into my 
memory, and simply seeing them brought to life in a film is such a 
thrilling feeling that it's hard to look past the initial giddiness 
to really ascertain whether the movie is a good one or not. My 
initial opinion: It is a good movie, but not a great one. Scenes and 
subplots have been cut from the books, resulting in scenes that are 
unexplained, or plots that seem to go nowhere. The following is a 
mixture of review and flat-out spoilage. Read ahead at your own risk.

The film opens with a tracking shot that brings us to a sign 
reading "Privet Drive." We see Albus Dumbledore walking through a 
grove of trees and meeting McGonagall in front of the Dursleys' 
house. It is honestly rather odd to see these two robed and hatted 
individuals standing in the middle of a suburban Surrey street. 
Hagrid arrives on the good old flying motorcycle, although mention of 
Sirius Black is omitted. He delivers baby Harry, who Dumbledore lays 
at the Dursleys front door wrapped in a plaid blanket with a letter 
addressed the the Dursleys laid across him. We get a brief shot of 
the baby's sleeping face and the nasty, vicious cut along the side of 
his forehead.

Fast-forward ten years, and Petunia is waking Harry up for their trip 
to the zoo. Dudley apparently has a habit of jumping up and down on 
the stairs to wake up Harry. Thefilmmakers have wisely chosen to give 
us only a very little bit of the Dursleys, rightly reckoning that a 
little Dursley goes a long way. The zoo trip is perfectly fine -- 
Harry is adorable in Dudley's huge clothes, and his bonding moment 
with the snake is actually charming. No, we do not get to hear what 
Parselmouth sounds like. Harry appears to be speaking English, and so 
does the snake. When the glass vanishes, Dudley falls into the snake 
cage, only to have the glass seal up behind him, trapping him inside. 
Amusing, if non-canonical, moment.

A shout out of appreciation to Fiona Shaw and Richard Griffiths who 
play Petunia and Vernon. (Harry Mellings plays Dudley off as a 
caricature, which I suppose he is.) Shaw especially has a fine moment 
once Hagrid arrives at the Hut on the Rock and Harry accuses his aunt 
and uncle of concealing the truth about his parents from him. 
Petunia's evident loathing of her sister and her "abnormality" is 
fierce and even a mite creepy.

>From the hut, the film moves on to its first big set piece: Diagon 
Alley. (a passing mention of the Leaky Cauldron scene -- the moment 
where Hagrid announces that this is little Harry Potter he has with 
him and the whole tavern goes dead quiet sent shivers up my spine.) 
Diagon Alley, I am happy to say, has a distinctly dark, Dickensian 
feel. Bats hang from rafters, the Daily Prophet sign swings in the 
wind, Ollivander's wand shop proclaims that they are fine 
wandmakers "since 320 BC." The busy, chaotic, dusty street feels just 
right: when Harry passed a shop around which a bunch of children had 
gathered to ooh the new Nimbus 2000, Ashley and I bounced in glee.

The scene in Ollivander's shop is another hero-moment for Harry. The 
first two wands he selects wreak havoc on the little shop; we switch 
briefly to Ollivander's POV while he hunts for the "right" wand. When 
he tells Harry that the brother of the wand he's chosen "gave you 
that scar," Harry touches his forehead -- it is one of a very few 
glimpses of the scar we get during the film.

Of course, this leads Harry to the conversation with Hagrid in which 
Hagrid tells Harry about his parents. Interestingly, the death of 
Harry's parents is done as a flashback. We SEE Voldemort walking up 
the stairs of the Potters' home. We see Lily, a pretty redhead in 
jeans and a sweater, putting baby Harry down in his crib before she 
walks out of the room and is rapidly Avada Kedavrad to death by 
Voldie, who then trains his wand right between baby Harry's eyes.

Cut back to Hagrid, who finishes his tale. There is an odd lack of 
emotion in this scene. When Hagrid tells Harry "You're the Boy 
Who...Lived!" Harry just looks poleaxed. Ah well. I suppose anyone 
would.

We cut to King's Cross station, where Hagrid hands Harry a ticket for 
the Hogwarts Express. (That's right...a ticket.) King's Cross is a 
big moment because of course, here we meet...The Weasleys! George and 
Fred toss off their one-liners with flair (Woman, you call yourself 
our mother?) Ginny looks more like seven years old than ten to me, 
but H/G shippers will be pleased to know she speaks to Harry. She 
says, "Good luck." They may not be so pleased by Harry's reaction: he 
ignores her. We get brief glimpses of Percy in this scene (he's the 
first through the barrier) and Ashley claims she saw Neville and his 
grandma, although I missed that. 

The train scene was the first scene that really made me squeak in 
glee. The Hogarts Express is a gorgous train --we've all seen it, it 
looks like a red jellybean. Ron comes to sit with Harry since all the 
other seats "are taken" and his bug-eyed stare on being told who his 
compartment companion actually is made me warm up to Rupert. Harry 
buys out the candy cart and the boys are soon knee-deep in chocolate 
frogs (Harry's hops out the window) and Scabbers is soon wearing a 
candy box hat. Hermione arrives looking for Neville's toad, takes one 
look at Harry, and exclaims, "Harry Potter! So it's true!" She plonks 
herself down across from Harry, takes off his glasses, and repairs 
them with a handy spell (Oculus reparus!) She introduces herself to 
Harry. Hermione then observes Ron as if he were a dung beetle. 
H: "And who are YOU?"
R: Ron Weasley.
H: A pleasure, I'm sure. (Heavy on the sarcasm.) Hermione then 
flounces to the door, turns, and tells Ron: You have dirt on your 
nose. Right...there!

My inner H/H shipper was charmed by the glasses business.  

As reported, Draco's scene with Harry in the robe shop and the "train 
scene" are cruelly excised. He is left to introduce himself to Harry 
right before the Sorting Ceremony. "Malfoy. Draco Malfoy." Ron quite 
rightly laughs at this, and Draco shoots him a death glare, pulled 
off very well by Tom Felton, who carries off the Malfoy smirk with 
panache. Tom is a gorgous little boy, with huge blue-gray eyes and a 
snub nose, and if he grows up as cute as he currently is, they are 
going to have big problems trying to get people to keep hating Draco. 
But I digress.

The Sorting Ceremony left something to be desired. Only five students 
are sorted: Susan Bones, Hermione, Ron, Harry, and Draco. There is no 
indication that things are done in alphabetical order and it is 
unclear while Harry has the hat on his head whether everyone can hear 
what it is saying to him, or if only Harry can. Also, no Sorting Hat 
song. This is the first time we see Snape, who looks very much the 
part. Ron is also given Hagrid's line, "There was never a wizard went 
bad who wasn't in Slytherin." 

Side note: I've heard complaints about Daniel's acting, but I don't 
see it. Little Dan has the perfect face to be Harry -- transparent as 
a window pane, showing everything he feels, somehow managing to 
express both momentary joy and the everpresent knowledge of a wounded 
and sorrowful past. My personal problem is that, while Daniel is a 
beautiful little boy, and has lovely eyes, they are a stunning shade 
of...BLUE. Hello? Ashley and I surmised that we might be seeing an 
early print without the green CGI'd in.