It's been over 10 years since the whole Harry Potter craze started on films and the whole time I thought it was stupid and had no interest in it. Now I'm 23 and checking out a lot of movies lately and thought to myself, there's eight movies and each movie sells pretty well a billion each time and everyone loves it it has such high reviews and I actually like the whole magic and wizards thing so maybe I'll give it a try.

So going into Philosopher's Stone I didn't really have high hopes especially when the main character is 11. I figured maybe later on in the series when everyones older it'll get better. In the end of the film I thought it was good but like I thought it was a little childish and CGI sucked..but it was 2001. The whole story around Voldomort seems like it can get interesting.

I'm expecting more out of the second film and I'm hoping it'll be much better. But it was a good introduction to the Harry Potter world.

I'll update after I watch chamber of secrets.

The films are faithful to the books throughout, but the first film was very rigid like they didn't want anything to go wrong so it ended up being a bad standalone film and more just the book on screen. They do improve a lot after #1.

Later films got better at being films and the child acting/effects/atmosphere improved. The books also took a darker/more mature direction which carries over to the films especially starting with #3.

(The one who plays Hermione never gets better at acting though)

I feel sorry for you... you are about to have to suffer through The Chamber of Secrets.

Push through though and the series as a whole is good, though I wish the film makers had cut the ridiculous 15 years later bit at the end.

The special effects and action definitely improve as the series progresses.

Two weeks later I finally got around to watching Chamber of Secrets (That's the problem with these movies there all almost 3 hours long, it's hard to find the time of day to watch them, so I have to watch them really late at night before I got to bed), and it was surprisingly better then I expected. I was still expecting the whole problem with the movie being made in 2003 so the main character is still young and I was expecting a very Rate-E for everyone type movie, but it wasn't that bad. I especially wasn't having much expectation after seeing TWRoO post claiming it to be one of the worst in the series.

Anyway CG was a huge improvement in this movie, much more realistic. The movie seemed a bit more mature then the last which I was hoping, you can hear Voldomort whispering "kill' about a million times throughout the movie, and a lot of the people getting petrified was a little creepy. The series is slowly making me more and more interested in this Voldomort character, not to mention I'm already imagining some of the main characters that could go bad, some are very sketchy looking.

Anyway overall it was good, but my main complaint is that it was way to long, I found myself thinking when the f*ck is the movie going to be over, even though it kept me somewhat interested (beer supply was getting low).

Next up is Prisoner of Azkaban, I'm gonna start raising my expectations as the series goes on, juging by the pic below it looks to be a more darker of a film. Please no spoilers of future titles!!

Brief reviews of all 8 movies, no real spoilers though.

HP1 - Kinda sucked, dreadful acting from the child actors (though, as with the rest of the series, great acting from the adult cast)
HP2 - Still dreadful acting, improvement from the first one though
HP3 - They can act! This is where the series takes a big step up.
HP4 and HP5 - Both alright but not great, played pretty straight
HP6 - Good movie and genuinely funny at times
HP7/8 - Decent, but a bit drawn out and by this stage the plot is a bit whack (that's the fault of the books though)

In summary - you've probably got the best movies still to come.

Sorcerer's Stone: B
Chamber of Secrets: B+
Prisoner of Azkaban: A+
Goblet of Fire: B
Order of the Phoenix: A-
I never bothered to watch the rest. Overall good movies but the books are way better.

Prisoner of Azkaban is easily the best in the series. It's also the point when the series starts getting dark. Goblet of Fire was ok but terrible compared to the novel. Order of the Phoenix was pretty good. Half Blood Prince focused too much on relationships and ignored the main plot of the book but it was the funniest in the series. DH parts 1 and 2 were both solid films.

From best to worst:
PoA
OotP
Cos
DH part 2
DH part 1
HBP
SS
GoF

The books are WAAAAAAAAAY better than the movies.  But, personally 4, 6, and 7 part 1 and 2 are good movies.  The rest are crap.  The 3rd movie is the absolute worst.  Just awful.

I still have to watch the last 3, got em laying around on blu-ray. It seems I always find something more interesting to watch first. Maybe this thread will finally make me unwrap them.