Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

RATING: B-

(Preface Note: A few may have noticed that there was no review last week. Based on my stats, that number of people who noticed was indeed likely very few, if anyone at all. Due to family-related reasons, I really had no opportunities all of last week to sit down, watch a movie (especially a long one like this) and then write up a review for it. Things should be back to normal now.) 

The first two installments in the Harry Potter series gave us unusually more reverent adaptions of their source material, courtesy of director Chris Columbus. And despite overall stellar casting, we still did have to put up with some lackluster child acting--particularly in the first one. Now, the third one comes along and things are a bit different. For one, we have a new director in Alfonso Cuaron. And his style is noticeably different. 

For one thing, Cuaron's style is a bit more visually focused at times--and it shows. The visuals and special effects are generally quite improved over the first two movies. Cuaron does give us some pretty impressive shots; there is often a nice attention to detail if one is looking for it.

What is also different here is that this adaption is definitely less faithful to the book. While for the most part it's not too bad (there's even a couple of subtle improvements over the book here and there), there's still some problems. For example, the identities of the Marauders are *never* explained (which I feel is pretty important, given that they're major characters). And while the first Quidditch match appears (and is woefully brief, again showing the film series' ineptitude with portraying the sport), the other two don't happen at all.

Oh yeah, and the dementors are not done justice at all. While they're still menacing, they're essentially just a swarm of flying black ghouls here. It's like they were trying so hard in the movies to distinguish them from the Black Riders of the Lord of the Rings series that they lost their way. (And unfortunately, it only gets even worse from here with regards to depicting the dementors.) 

And really, the sequencing of probably the first two-thirds or so just feels awkward at times. It feels like they just took certain scenes from the book (mostly the more important ones) and just spliced them together without regard for transitioning or flow, and the passage of time is not always clear either. This problem thankfully disappears later, but it's still a little bothering at times. 

So what does actually work about this movie? Still plenty. As previously mentioned, it's a quite nice film to look at. And the final act is done quite well, with the time-travel bits actually a bit improved at times over the source material. And if one has gotten this far (like most have), it'll still be difficult to not be enthralled with the main story-lines, which are still overall quite excellent despite the awkward pacing of the film itself. 

Also, there's the cast to consider. In addition to the usual ones we've already seen (Radcliffe, Watson, Rickman, etc), this one introduces Gary Oldman and David Thewlis, both of whom do great--particularly the former. We also get the first film with Michael Gambon's rendition of Dumbledore, and while his is hardly anything like Richard Harris's version, he's still pretty good and certainly seems less frail. Tom Felton (Draco) also improved his performance over the first two movies, even though he's not really given much to do other than "my father will...!"

Prisoner of Azkaban isn't a bad movie by any means; in fact, it's often still pretty doggone good. It's just a little sloppily written at times. It kind of feels like they were having some growing pains with transitioning the film series from the style of the first two films to the style we got used to in later films. Still, it is generally difficult to go wrong with a Harry Potter movie and even if this is one of the worst of the lot, that doesn't make it a disaster either.