Third Time's The Charm

Ever since I started reading the Harry Potter books years ago I have loved the series. After the first and second movies were made (which were my least favorites of the whole series), I was excited because the actual really good books were going to be adapted to film. The first of which being the third one, The Prisoner of Azkaban, which is definitely my favorite book of the entire series thus far.

The Prisoner of Azkaban opened about a week ago grossing a crap load of money and tons of fan service with rumors that it was the best movie yet–which didn’t surprise me at the least. Yesterday I went to see this movie after the sour distaste of the Garfield movie and I have to say that I enjoyed this one more.

In case you don’t know, the Harry Potter books burst onto the scene in 1999 with the first book titled Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone. It was a hit overnight and it’s still a success today with five books with still two more to come. It’s a series involving a young boy who finds he’s a wizard and through all of his struggles and his deep past is a hero who’s quite modest and loyal to his friends. He goes to a school named Hogwarts and quickly masters the arts of magic. All seven books are to follow his stay at the school and this is the third movie with four more to go (if the actors and actresses are still interested by the time that all of them are supposed to be done).

The onslaught of Summer movies has begun with movies such as Troy, Garfield, The Chronicles of Riddick, and The Day After Tomorrow, but out of the ones I’ve seen so far, this one is definitely my favorite. What makes The Prisoner of Azkaban so good is that it acts as a stand-alone title (which it’s not) to make people understand the series in case they’ve never heard of J.K. Rowling (the author) or the first two films. That’s very extraordinary and a good thing.

Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban starts in England with Harry living with his aunt, uncle, and cousin–the Dursleys. These folks have been mean to him every since he was a little kid when they adopted him after his parents died. Well, after an incident involving one of his family members blowing up like a balloon, he gets angry and leaves. He runs away only to catch the Night Bus that takes him to London and to the bus station that takes the kids all to Hogwarts. Are you lost? After a while you start to find out that a man by the name of Siris Black has escaped from a magical (and most lethal) prison named Azkaban and that he may have something to do with the death of Harry’s folks.

Sure enough you soon find out the truth, but that’s after Harry Potter has started his third year at Hogwarts, gotten into a lot of mischief with his two friends, Ron and Hermione, and facing up against the dark Dementors (who roam the grounds of the school trying to find Siris). Through a story of humor, magic, and drama you soon find out just how this plays a role with the other films and how it’s much better.

Just to tell you, in case you don’t already know, this is a magic movie. Although not in the vein of the popular Lord Of The Rings movies, it does try to be epic and really mature, but it just isn’t as high maintenance as the previously mentioned trilogy, but that’s not a bad thing. And did anyone notice that was a run-on sentence? Anyway, from experience I can tell you this: if you don’t have any interest in magic then you’ll still like this movie because it’s fun for the whole family due to the narrative standpoint that you can easily relate with on some level. Although the movies in the past have been strongly for kids and the acting was a little shallow, it’s happy to say that this book/movie is the beginning of the Dark years and the music expresses the desolate and black plain that the movie is based on.

Making appearances in The Prisoner of Azkaban are some truly memorable folks. First off you have Gary Oldman playing the Siris Black role and although he’s not as warm as his other movies in this one, he does do a great job for a villain. I find that his relationship with certain characters in the movie didn’t really work so well and he was barely in the flick besides having his face on glaring and screaming flyers scattered everywhere. Another good guy is David Thewlis who plays Professor Lupin who takes over for The Defense Against The Dark Arts class (which is cursed or something since every year there’s a new teacher). Is it just me or is it a good thing that he’s finally playing a good guy instead of a bad fellow? Anyway, although his mustache is a little hard to watch, he brings some warmth and dignity to the movie with his portrayal of a haunting man trying to cope with his past and you find out more about him along the way.

Finally you have the charming, cuddly, cutesy, awesome, and inspiring kids of the flick. First off you have Daniel Radcliffe who plays Harry Potter. Sure, you’re probably annoyed with how he’s on every magazine cover and sure he’ll probably not get any more acting jobs ever again and probably only appear at conventions like The Lord Of The Rings cast, but he’s still good. In the first two films he was hard to look at because he was going through puberty at the time and his acting really suffered (it was bad). Now, he’s much better than ever further chiseling at his character to create something that livens up the character from the book.

Next you have Emma Watson who plays Hermione and in the first and second movie I could hardly stand her. Now...she’s a blossoming young woman....who’d I’d like to take to the movie on time. She’s pretty now and he acting has gotten fairly better although when she gets excited on screen she stumbles. Rupert Grint (you can just tell all of these blokes are British, eh?) acts out the character of Ron Weasley, a poor guy a part of a poor family, who is dealing with himself growing up and growing...attracted to Hermione. She’s mine, Rupert! Back off! Anyway, he didn’t have a very large role in this one and he was sort of added in as comic relief which I didn’t like since I was always quite fond of him in the movies. Oh, well. He’ll have a big part in the fourth movie, The Goblet Of Fire which is supposed to come out next year (hopefully).

Chris Columbus steps off of the broom for this time out to the Harry Potter universe and is replaced by Alfonso Cuaron. It’s a really odd choice that they picked him to direct because the only movies that I can recall him doing was A Little Princess and some foreign “erotic” film. Pretty weird, huh? He, in my mind, breaks it even with the director of Mrs. Doubtfire in a lot of ways. First of all, their skills are pretty similar from backdrops, gliding techniques, and some lighting effects, but it’s more than that. They way that he pushed the characters to the limit acting wise made him far more engaging than the previous director. Something that’s awful, though, is how on some parts of the movie I felt as if I was watching a cheesy kids show because his direction was sort of sloppy. On the whole his directing was good. That’s all you need to know.

Although there was some healthy Quidditch scenes in the first couple of movies, the lack of Quidditch (which is a game like soccer or “football” played on broomsticks) is mesmerizing. There should have been more Quidditch, dammit! For people who have loved the sport being played in the previous films, you will have a moment of happiness before it is interrupted by a Dementor. I wish the Quidditch part was longer, but in the fourth movie there is going to be tons of the game–guaranteed (trust me).

I’d say that this is one of my favorite summer movies to come out this summer so far. It has all of the qualities that anyone could ever love like plenty of action, suspense (if you haven’t read the book already), excitement, and just pure fun. The movie has its share of funny moments brought you mostly by Rupert Grint, but there is some occasional off-color humor that you’ll easily get a chuckle with. The CGI graphics from the first two flicks have been overhauled and replaced with extraordinary graphics that really make the movie shine much brighter than the previous adaptations. A year’s amount of work went into the computer animation and you can sure tell when you see the finished product. Hopefully you’ll give this movie a chance and I’m happy to say that it’s the best one yet. Definitely worth a buy, but until then it’s really worth it to see it on the big screen. Five stars.

© Jason Haskins, 2004

“JiggyJay”



Related Reviews

Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone (Book) ~ Harry Potter and The Order Of The Phoenix (Book) ~ Harry Potter and The Chamber Of Secrets (Movie)