Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone (Fullscreen) (2001)

New York Times
"...[Mr. Radcliffe] possesses a watchful gravity....Ms. Watson has the sass and smarts to suggest she might cast a spell of her own..." 11/16/2001 p.E1

Box Office
"...A stunning achievement in set design, costumes, make-up, special effects and a well-chosen cast rendering perfectly and vividly an iconic and universally renowned fantasy world..." 01/01/2002 p.60

Sight and Sound
"...Rupert Grint is very good....HARRY POTTER will captivate younger children..." 01/01/2002 p.43-4

Variety
"...The script is faithful, the actors are just right, the sets, costumes, makeup and effects match and sometimes exceed anything one could imagine..." 11/12/2001 p.27-33

Chicago Sun-Times
"...A red-blooded adventure movie, dripping with atmosphere, filled with the gruesome and the sublime and surprisingly faithful to the novel....Director Chris Columbus seems to have created a classic..." 02/17/2002 p.6

ReelViews 8 of 10
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is unquestionably a member of the fantasy genre. However, while the majority of fantasy novels strike a tone that straddles the somber and the ominous, Rowling keeps it light, falling somewhere between that of David Eddings' Belgariad and Piers Anthony's A Spell for Chameleon. Harry Potter's most apparent antecedents are J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit (which is written in a much lighter style than The Lord of the Rings), C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia, and Lloyd Alexander's The Chronicles of Prydain. Like Harry Potter, those books find their most enthusiastic supporters in the bracket of ages 10 to 15, but feature enough character development, plot, and thematic content to attract an older audience...J.K. Rowling has given her full support to the finished project, gushing how closely it meets her vision of what the characters and their world should look like. Fans of the book will likely love or hate the movie based on how closely things match their preconceived notions...Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone stands out as a solid piece of entertainment. The film's spell may not be as potent as that of the book, but there's still some magic in what Columbus and his crew have wrought. - James Berardinelli
 
Chicago Sun-Times 10 of 10
''Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" is a red-blooded adventure movie, dripping with atmosphere, filled with the gruesome and the sublime, and surprisingly faithful to the novel. A lot of things could have gone wrong, and none of them have: Chris Columbus' movie is an enchanting classic that does full justice to a story that was a daunting challenge. The novel by J.K. Rowling was muscular and vivid, and the danger was that the movie would make things too cute and cuddly. It doesn't. Like an "Indiana Jones" for younger viewers, it tells a rip-roaring tale of supernatural adventure, where colorful and eccentric characters alternate with scary stuff like a three-headed dog, a pit of tendrils known as the Devil's Snare and a two-faced immortal who drinks unicorn blood. Scary, yes, but not too scary--just scary enough...During "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," I was pretty sure I was watching a classic, one that will be around for a long time, and make many generations of fans. It takes the time to be good. It doesn't hammer the audience with easy thrills, but cares to tell a story, and to create its characters carefully. Like "The Wizard of Oz," "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory," "Star Wars" and "E.T.," it isn't just a movie but a world with its own magical rules. - Roger Ebert