Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Now it seems that the Harry Potter film series will be butchered because a lot of important information from the books was left out in the movies. This is certainly the case in the 2004 film, “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.” Apparently at the time, this was the favorite book of Harry Potter fans. I thought the book was great and it was interesting, but I didn’t consider it my favorite at all. Maybe it was because the book didn’t have any confrontation between Voldemort and Harry, but those are the moments that people should look forward to. Anyways, back to the review.

This film is darker than the first two, and Chris Columbus did not come back to direct this one because he apparently suffered from “burnout.” He was replaced by Alfonso Cuaron, director of such classics as “A Little Princess” and “Y Tu Mama Tambien.” I do give Cuaron credit for picking up where Columbus left off and made the world darker from the last movie. Roger Ebert commented, “The world of the first film, with its postal owls and Quiddich matches, seems innocent now, and although there is indeed a Quiddich match in this film, it's played in a storm that seems to have blown in from "The Day after Tomorrow".” I like how Cuaron tried to put in as much as he could in the movie from the book, but when we were about to find out why Sirius Black killed Harry’s parents, we instead get a lesser interesting character, Peter Pettigrew, who was Ron’s pet rat, Scabbers.

The film has a few new faces. One, who is the primary focus of movie is Sirius Black, played by Gary Oldman, who we find out is Harry’s godfather, and he really grows close to Harry and tries to help him out as best as he can. Next is the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Remus Lupin, played by David Thewlis, who, unlike the past two teachers, helps Harry learn a Patronus spell to help him against the new evil henchmen that Voldemort has running about, Death Eaters. The very lovely Emma Thompson is in this film playing Professor Sybil Trelawney. I have to say, Thompson really gets over-the-top and crazy in this role, especially when she looks at the leaves in Harry’s teacup and sees Death in it. As I had stated yesterday, Richard Harris passed away after finishing working on the second Harry Potter movie. They casted Michael Gambon to play Dumbledore, and he continued reprising his role as Dumbledore from this film all the way up to the last movie. I prefer Harris over Gambon, but Gambon does a decent job.

Harry’s character grows in this movie. In the first one, he couldn’t stand up to his extended family that he is sadly stuck with, but in this one, he does. When he makes his Aunt Marge (no, not Large Marge. That’s another movie), played by Pam Ferris, into a balloon, and Vernon says to bring her back, he points his wand at Vernon and says Marge got what she deserves. That takes a lot of guts. When Harry meets the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, played by Robert Hardy, he doesn’t press charges since he didn’t break the Decree, unlike in the last one when Harry and Ron almost got busted by Snape because of six Muggles seeing the flying car.

Who is the new creature in this film you ask? Well, in the first one we saw Norbert, Hagrid’s new pet dragon, his three-headed dog, Fluffy, and dog, Fang. In the second film, there was Hagrid’s pet spider, Aragog, and in this one, we meet a half-bird, half-horse creature called a Hippogriff named Buckbeak.

Our three main heroes get a lot of dangers up ahead in this film. When the Whomping Willow tree appears in the third act, which we did see Ron and Harry get into a confrontation with in the second film, we know that it’s an obvious CGI effect, but we also find there is a shelter underneath that the three hide in. Ron also has a pocket watch that can reverse time, which Harry and Hermione use in order to fix a certain event. If you have not read the books, than you would not know what is going on.

How is this film compared to the first two? It’s not as good because, like I had mentioned before, there were a lot of details that they had left out from the book. For instance, without reading the book, none of the viewers will know who Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs are. Also, unlike the first two, Columbus had certain stuff left out from the books, but there were still enjoyable moments and you didn’t care. That was because of the “sense of joyously leaping through a clockwork plot,” as Ebert stated. However, the world is still delightful and amusing to look at, and I like that Cuaron really pushed the boundaries on this one and made it darker and scarier. How? Let’s try werewolves, revenge plot, crazy over-the-top performance, and everything to make the film dark. It was certainly starting to get darker in the books, so this one would be the first taste of how dark it was going to get. So, if you liked the first two, check this one out as well.

But what can be said about what lies ahead? How will the other films turn out? Will they be darker and stay true to the books? Or will they be botched up as much as this one was? Stay tuned for tomorrow in my “Harry Potter-a-thon.”