The first two Harry Potter movies captured the "magic" of the first two books with flying colors, which led the two movies to an overall combined gross of over 600 million dollars. That's some pretty fat cash. It has been two years since Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets came out, and within that time frame, the fifth book in the series (
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix) came out, and my excitement for the Prisoner of Azkaban grew so much I started having dreams about how good it'd be. Yeah, yeah, yeah, a 17 year olds wet dream, right? No not exactly, but the first two movies showed that some amazing things could be done with the rest of the movies in the series, and since the Prisoner of Azkaban was my personal favorite book next to Order of the Phoenix, I was even more excited about how well the adaptation went. Well, lets just say that it was an even ball game all throughout, with some things left to be desired, and some things that were non-desirable. With a new director, Alfonso Cuaron, I knew that there would be some changes, but I wasn't quite prepared for the changes that took place.
The Prisoner of Azkaban does a lot of things for the Harry Potter series. For one, it begins the steps towards the much darker tone the series takes on with the 4th and 5th books, and it had probably one of the most interesting stories other than the Order of the Phoenix. In Prisoner of Azkaban, the buzz around the wizard's world is how Sirius Black (Gary Oldman, did you know he was once married to Uma Thurman for 2 years?) has escaped from the dreaded Wizard's prison, Azkaban, which was believed to be impossible to do. Sirius Black was believed to have wiped out a bunch of Wizard's, and led Lord Voldemort to the location of James and Lily Potter and, ultimately, their deaths. Now Sirius Black has escaped Azkaban, to return to his leader Lord Voldemort, or possibly to finish off Harry Potter, the boy who cheated death.
All the while this is going on, Harry Potter is once again completely oblivious to happenings in the Wizard's world while he is stuck living in his Uncle Vernon's house. Everything starts out pretty calmly until Uncle Vernon's sister, Aunt Marge, comes for a visit and starts to talk down about Harry's parents. All this becomes too much for Harry, and he inadvertently causes Aunt Marge to blow up like a balloon. Harry's had it, and so he packs up his trunk and leaves his Uncle's house, where he encounters a big black shaggy dog (which he later learns is the grim, the sign of death) across the street from the curb he was sitting on. Harry's blown back by the Knight Bus, a bus for stranded Witches and Wizards, and he's taken to the Leaky Cauldron where all his stuff has been taken, and even his school books were bought for him. After simply being told by Cornelius Fudge (Robert Hardy) that he is glad that Harry is safe, and that he's not going to be punished for using magic outside of school (which they aren't allowed to do), since all he did was blow up his aunt on accident.
Here is where Harry learns about Sirius Black, and where the rest of the story plays out in a series of brilliance and excitement. The Prisoner of Azkaban is my second favorite book in the series (following closely behind The Order of the Phoenix), and is actually my favorite movie out of the 3 that have been released. Chris Columbus did a nice job with the Sorcerer's Stone and the Chamber of Secrets, but because of the dark nature that the series starts to head towards in the third book, Alfonso Cuaron was picked to direct. Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) is now a lot less childish, and from the first two movies, the chemistry between him and his friends Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson) is really high. Chris Columbus's adaptation wasn't perfect in the first two movies, and neither is this movie. There are still a lot of details from the book that would have been nice to have in the movie because it seemed to just roll from one thing to the next without much explanation of what's happening. I guess it's a lot easier to describe things in words than it is to put to the big picture like this, so I didn't make a big deal out of the inconsistencies that the movie had.
The bigger and darker Prisoner of Azkaban was executed very well, and it seemed that Professor Severus Snape (Alan Rickman) fit in with the movie very well, though he wasn't given much screen time this time around. Most of the characters you've grown to love from the first two movies are back like Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane) and the Weasley's, as well as the new Defense of the Dark Arts teacher, and an integral character in Harry Potter's future, Professor Lupin (David Thewlis). There are a couple things that I really didn't like about Prisoner of Azkaban though, one of them being Michael Gambon being cast as the great Dumbledore (I'm sorry, but he just doesn't fit the part at all, the emotions of the great Richard Harris will forever be remembered, Rest In Peace), and the other being the redesign of the Hogwarts layout. Unless Gambon does a lot better in the Goblet of Fire, he's going to ruin the believability that Albus Dumbledore is a great and powerful wizard, because in Prisoner of Azkaban, it didn't feel believable. Richard Harris had Dumbledore's character pinned down flat, and his "greatness" really radiated in the Sorcerer's Stone and the Chamber of Secrets. With the redesign of the school grounds, Cuaron really destroyed the image I had of how Hogwarts looked, which was what the first two movies did really well. Of course, if the following movies decide to keep the design that Cuaron made, it might work well with the events in later books, so the new layout is more like a pet peeve than a real negative about the movie.
Filled with excitement, action, and darkness,
The Prisoner of Azkaban really delivered, and the special effects have gotten so much better over the course of 4 years. From Quidditch in a thunderstorm (which hasn't been getting as much screen time as in the first two movies), to the werewolf, to flying on Buckbeak (Hippogriff), the special effects are only getting better, and it's going to be interesting to see how Mike Newell, the new director for
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire does with the 4th movie. I'm looking forward to the Goblet of Fire because of the amount of Quidditch that the book deals with (pretty much the first quarter of the book or so), and all that happened in the book, you can be sure I'll be picking out as many things in the movie that Mike doesn't include from the books. Pick up the DVD or VHS today and complete your Harry Potter collection with
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
happy viewing Related Reviews: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
