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• 1080p High Definition

• Capturing the Stone Featurette

• Around the World Multilanguage Clip

• Ghosts of Hogwarts Featurette

• Interactive Menus

• Yearbook Character Clips

Special Feature Rating:

The Potter saga begins with the young wizard living life as a muggle (non-magical person). He is a virtual prisoner. His parents dead, Potter was sent as an infant to live with his aunt and uncle, Petunia and Vernon Dursley. They treat him like an animal, locking him in a tiny closet under the stairs while bestowing all their love on their boorish son, Dudley. But young Harry Potter soon shows signs that he has magical powers.

The faculty at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry--most notably Albus Dumbledore (Richard Harris)--is familiar with Harry, having trained his parents and rescued him after he was orphaned. In fact, all of the wizard community seems to know more about Harry than he knows about himself. Letters of invitation begin pouring in from Hogwarts, but Vernon Dursley will not accept wizardry and adopts a policy of throwing away Harry's mail. Vernon even moves his entire family to escape the agents of Hogwarts. Ultimately the school sends groundskeeper Hagrid to fetch Harry, remove him from the Dursley's cruel grasp and help the young wizard get school supplies. During the errands, Harry learns the fate of his parents. They were killed by an evil wizard named Voldemort. Harry begins to discover his self-worth when he realizes that, as an infant, he was the only person who Voldemort could not kill. The murder attempt left a scar on Potter's forehead.

Harry is on the train to Hogwarts when he makes two friends: Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) and Hermione Granger (Emma Watson). The trio would become somewhat inseparable throughout the Potter saga. In The Sorcerer's Stone, they uncover a plot wherein Voldemort's attempts to return to human form using a powerful stone hidden in an underground chamber at Hogwarts. Harry, Ron and Hermione decide they must preempt Voldemort's acquisition of the sorcerer's stone. The film follows their first year at Hogwarts as they attend classes, master the art of broomstick flying, face detention in the Forbidden Forest and play a high-stakes game of wizard's chess.

Story Rating:

While The Sorcerer's Stone yields good detail and has some film-like qualities, one word came to mind as I analyzed the picture: soft. While Order of the Phoenix was crisp with good contrast and inky black levels, the first film in the series appears more diffuse. While the resolution is 1080p and some film grain and noise is visible, it takes on an almost digital sheen--a quality I found lackluster. Granted, these observations are by degrees, and overall, The Sorcerer's Stone is significantly more detailed than the DVD

Picture Rating:

While not laden with reverb or smearing, voices and music do not have the precise, crisp definition associated with most Blu-ray content. Like the video, it has a soft, foggy quality. The use of surround effects is good, and some content is fairly innovative, such as the quidditch game played on broomsticks where students from different Hogwart dormitories face off in not-so-friendly competition. Listen to the sound of the golden, winged ball that Harry must chase down. It hums, buzzes and blips with fairly engaging audio resolution.

Sound Rating:

Overall Rating:

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