Wolff rating: GOOD
Plot summary: Young boy goes to wizard school.
Biased, pithy comments: I read a lot of complaints when this movie came out---that it was soulless, that it was too long, that it was too scary, or even (I liked this one) it was too faithful to the book. (This, from the very same critics who scream when stories are modified for screen.) You can complain all you want, but it doesn't stop it from being a delightful film. Hollywood has for years been casting around for some new form of hyper-realism that ``Star Wars'' had, complete with stunning visuals and a real sense of wonder, and they've found it in J.K. Rowling's determinedly British novels of boarding school. Oh, Columbus is no Spielberg, and there are certainly some tone shifts here and there that don't work for me, but I'm quibbling about nothing when I was having too much fun watching children effortless fly about on broomsticks, talking hats think to themselves, and hundreds of candles hover over a huge dining room. My biggest complaint, really, was that I wanted twice as much Quidditch.
Other Notes: Quidditch, by the way, is a stupid game from a game-theory point of view; despite the fact that the sequence was wonderful, you still can't help thinking about all the
How many times I have seen it: x1
Starring: Emma Watson, Daniel Radcliffe, Robbie Coltraine, Rupert Grint
Directed by: Chris Columbus