In the past few weeks I've watched sequentially and for the first time all the Harry Potter movies, never having read the books. In short, after all the hype died down, I finally, and at a reasonable cost of money and time, wanted to see what was the big deal about those children books.
The first two movies I'll review together because they were produced and directed back to back as a timely reaction to the rising popularity of the books. While Rowling's insistence on British actors immensely helped book genuinely good actors rather than only star powers, the producers still insisted on making a "big deal" out of John Cleese's small cameo, or selecting the son of one of the executive producers as the lead role.
While both stories are quite good at mixing exposition and some plot line, it does seem that the scripts remained too close to the book. I haven't read the books, but you can notice in terms of pacing that many additional expositional scenes that fit in the pacing of reading don't fit too well in a movie. Especially the second movie, with a story that turns in a detective story, spends just too much time on every plot-related scene, making it much too long (nearly 3 hours).
Also, the movie adaptation struggles between accepting the "children's book" premise and actually presenting the violent parts in a realistic way. Actually, I was quite shocked to see how much violent some scenes turned out for a kid's movie, especially considering how many ways they could have presented these without feeling brutal. In a way, I found scenes too scary compared to the overall mood of the rest of the movie.
Still, the movies succeed well in presenting this fantastical world in an entertaining way, and combined with good acting, very good artistic direction and a relatively competent script, they are well worth watching. At the very least, they made me understand the popularity and hype of Harry Potter.