I would have preferred the film to be twice as long, but all in all the cuts are justified - especially as far as the weakest part of the book, i.e. the first few chapters (too kitsch) are concerned. The casting is excellent - Coltrane as Hagrid is ideal, for instance - in spite of the tendency to choose actors and (in the case of Emma Watson as Hermione, at least) actresses which are too good-looking. A particularly glaring case ist the casting of Alan Rickman as Severus Snape. Now, I am not the kind of persons who gets crushes on actors, but still... In all four volumes Snape is decribed as positively revolting - not just ugly but quite unappetizing. References to his greasy hair abound. Now, I suppose the make-up people could have provided Alan Rickman with sallow skin and an abnormally long nose but they certainly didn't. So why did Rowling choose him, anyway, as I understand she did? Because of the silky voice in which Snape proffers his sarcastic comments? Or because she realized that, as P.G.Wodehouse put it in Pigs have Wings , nothing is quite as scary as a dressy assassin? Or has she changed her mind about Snape? Anyway, the new and improved (beyond all recognition, in fact) Snape is extremely convincing as well as elegant, in an austere kind of way. I hope that if Rowling kills him off (and I have the sneaking suspicion that she will, eventually) she will at least wait until the end of the last volume.