Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

So far in terms of both the movies and the books, Prisoner of Azkaban dominates the top spot in the Harry Potter series. Where Sorcerer's Stone took much time establishing characters, tone, and sketching the outlines of Harry's back story, and Chamber of Secrets seemed a bit of a tepid copy (the book's footing far more assured, but still much of the formula remained) -- the Prisoner of Azkaban delves much further into key elements of Harry Potter's past. This time we have a tatty indie darling filmmaker with imagination, that most magical of all spells, combined with the indelible cast combination of the young and promising with the jazzy and inspired veterans.

The Sorcerers Stone introduced Harry Potter, and we were shown a gifted wizard selected to attend the privileged Hogwarts Academy for Wizards, where he meets his lifelong friends Hermione and Ron. Harry's lightning scar came courtesy of He Who Shall Not Be Named, but suffice it to say He Who killed Harry's parents. Harry learns of his mysterious past and he fights off some creature that did...well, something. I'm sure I knew what it was in my review of Sorcerer's Stone. The Chamber of Secrets, the sequel movie, did little to advance anything but it did present our young actors as people far more assured in the craft of hitting the x marks and flailing against a blue screen backdrop. Director Christopher Columbus remained too stuck, too slavishly literal, much like watching staged readings with an f/x budget.

As a far more lukewarm fans of the series, while curious about the next installment, I was stoked about Prisoner of Azkaban immediately after watching Chamber of Secrets because I knew a page by page literal rendition of that book would not be possible. In Hollywood, one page of script represents around one minute of film. And two pages of a book, in general, turns into around a page-and-a-half of script. Doing the math, if one is literal to the text and doesn't cut and adapt and be creative on their own, we're looking at Harry Potter And The Hundred Year's War.

Director Chris Columbus dropped out for personal reasons and stayed on as producer. Enter Alfonso Cuaron -- a wild, beautiful and daring choice that pays off. Cuaron's previous credit was the foreign/indie darling Yu Tu Mama Tambien, a Mexican comic road trip movie brimming with psycho-sexual situations and honesty concerning characters not much older than Harry Potter and co. in this book.

Everyone has a secret in the closet in this film. While Harry has many more he will have to deal with in future films, his biggie concerns the title character, a man who may -- or may not -- have had something to do with the death of Harry's parents, his uncle. Actors and actresses succeed in large part based on the look and feel their appearance gives to a character. Bogart IS Sam Spade. Marlon Brando IS Stanley Kowalski. Gary Oldman is "your weird uncle who may or may not have had something to do with the death of your parents." Another piece of spot-on and indelible casting. The dealie: he's escaped from Azkaban prison and a whole lot of people and demonic f/x creatures are looking for him. Harry, of course, magnetizes everything.

I liked the Dementors (the aforemention f/x on the prowl), whose method of prisoner paralysis sucks out every happy memory of anything a prisoner's felt, but in the film they suffer the classic "just not as good as the imagination" just a bit. I loved equally the clever time looping bit at the end, but most of all I just liked the whole tone and feel of this movie. It had a rapid pulse, palpable in a ravishing occasionally gloomy body that fits subject and subtext to a t. As a many-years-running filgoer and film fan, it's always a pleasure to chart the course of young careers and our central young characters mature just fine here.

Note On The Next Harry Potter Movie, The Goblet of Fire. The IMDB.com lists Mike Newell as the director. He directed, among others, Four Weddings And A Funeral, Donnie Brasco, and Mona Lisa Smile. Looks like -- dunno -- another intriguing choice. Could go either way.