Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Harry Potter. The magical boy wizard that everyone must have at least heard of by now. J.K. Rowling made her character famous through her lovely, spellbinding series of books, which there are currently 5 of (but will eventually be 7). Rowling s style of writing is something to marvel at, and her ability to make us sympathize with the characters, laugh at some of the situations and dialogue, get angry at some of the not very likable persons, spend our days wondering just how Harry will manage to get himself out of the messes he always ends up in, go without food or sleep so that we can keep reading, etc, is really impressive. Yes, it cannot be denied that the Harry Potter series is incredibly addicting, sometimes to the point where you obsess over it so much that you begin to call your friends Ron and Hermione, or ignore them altogether to go over the books yet again, searching for something that you may have missed the first, second, fifth, or tenth time around...

Harry is just a character that you can t help but like. Probably the first emotion you ll feel toward him is sympathy, once you look at his life. Poor Harry Potter was raised by the Dursleys: his terrible, hateful Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, after his parents died when he was only a baby. Forced to deal with their cruel punishments and the incessant taunting and bullying of his massive, greedy, not-too-smart cousin Dudley, Harry had a pretty miserable life, always wishing that his parents hadn t died in a car crash so many years ago. But this horrific lifestyle is about to come to an end On Harry s 11th birthday, a giant of a man named Hagrid locates him and realizes that the Dursleys have been keeping a very big secret from Harry the fact that he (as well as his parents) is a wizard. This news changes Harry s life immensely. It also becomes apparent that his parents didn t die in a car crash, but were killed by an evil dark wizard named Voldemort, who also tried to kill Harry, but failed, leaving Harry with only a lightning bolt scar on his forehead. Voldemort was feared by everyone, and after failing to kill Harry, he disappeared

Harry also learns that he has been accepted to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where his parents also went to school. And so he is off to Hogwarts, where he is famous, while trying to learn about all the new things in the wizarding world with the help of his friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger.

It was only a matter of time before the Harry Potter series became adapted for the movie screen, and Chris Columbus handled the first 2 movies, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer s Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, magnificently. The majesty and grandeur of Hogwarts was brought to life, and the scenery was beautiful and breathtaking. Daniel Radcliffe was cast as our beloved Harry, and the roles of his two chums Ron and Hermione went to Rupert Grint and Emma Watson.

In this, The Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry returns to Hogwarts for his third year after accidentally blowing his Aunt Marge up like a balloon after she said some rather nasty things about his parents. As with each return to the magical world, Harry is not up on the latest news, and the current hottest story is about the escape of Sirius Black, a vicious killer who was an avid supporter of Voldemort, from the much-feared (and supposedly impenetrable) wizard prison, Azkaban. As if this isn t frightening enough, it turns out that Black has apparently escaped in order to kill Harry, since he caused Voldemort s downfall.

There were two very noticeable absences in the third movie. First of all is Richard Harris, who portrayed the old, wise Albus Dumbledore in the preceding two films. Unfortunately, Harris died, and was replaced with Michael Gambon. I heard that Gambon would be replacing Harris before the movie was released, and was dismayed. I thought that he didn t fit the role of Dumbledore at all, but his performance was better than I expected. He was, of course, nowhere near as enchanting as Richard Harris, but he was an okay choice for replacement.

The second thing missing from this movie was Chris Columbus, the dedicated director who brought Harry s world to life in the previous two films. Alfonso Cuaron took over, and I must say, that was a surprising decision. I heard that Columbus was going to only do the first 2 films, but I was hoping that he would stay on and do the rest of them. In this film, there were many ridiculous, random things thrown in that confused me. I mean, where in the book did the boys of Gryffindor house gather to eat strange candy that made them make animals sounds? When did ghost horsemen crash through the windows near the Great Hall? And if they were ghosts, how come the windows made huge, piercing crashing sounds when they broke through them? Ghosts supposedly just glide through everything And where do shrunken voodoo heads that shout directions at bus drivers come in? Plus, we hardly get to see the Great Hall at all. In the other films, we were treated to the lovely dining area, with its ceiling that showcases what the sky looks like outside, quite a lot. And I was taken aback by the first time Harry rode Buckbeak, a large, half-bird, half-horse creature. In the book, he took a short ride on him in front of his Care of Magical Creatures class, and was quite happy to get back down on the ground. In the movie, Harry is a bit nervous as Buckbeak rises into the air, but soon, Buckbeak is soaring around the entire school, and even over a large area of water (that I assume is supposed to be the lake that is on the Hogwarts grounds), leaving the class behind. As though that weren t strange enough, Harry removes his hands from Buckbeak s neck, where he should be clinging for dear life, and spreads them out like an eagle and whoops excitedly. When he returns to the class, everyone is screaming and clapping, while Harry dismounts coolly and without a care in the world.

The other 2 movies did, of course, stray from the books slightly, but I felt that things were out of hand in The Prisoner of Azkaban. Everything seemed to be presented in a sort of ridiculous manner, and I found myself laughing at things that weren t supposed to be funny at all. During the talk Harry is having with Professor Lupin, his new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, I was laughing so much I missed half the conversation. Lupin is revealing to Harry that he knew his father and his mother, and the way he segues into speaking of Harry s mother had me cracking up. He then launched into a long speech about how wonderful she was, and how she accepted him when others did not. This movie almost made it seems as though Lupin and Lily (Harry s mother) were having some sort of secret love affair, which is ridiculous.

Fortunately, there were a few redeeming qualities for this movie. The special effects, for instance, were quite wondrous indeed. The Dementors, the terrifying, happy-emotion-stealing beasts that guard Azkaban, looked very convincing. Their shaggy, billowing black robes and decaying, rotting hands were taken right from the descriptions in the book. The one scene where there were hundreds of them soaring in the air, bearing down on Harry in the forest, was very well executed and had me glued to the screen. The Patronus Charm was also a wonder to witness on screen, and seeing the Dementors getting the full blast of it was enjoyable, indeed. But, of course, there was something annoyingly ridiculous that went right along with the Dementors. During a Quidditch game (the outrageously popular wizard game that consists of throwing and catching balls of varying sizes while on broomsticks), Harry falls from his broomstick because there are some Dementors on the ground below him. However, in the movie, the Dementors are right up there in the playing field, swooping down on him from all sides. How come no one notices? It s one thing for no one to realize right away that they re there on the ground, but when they re flying all around in the sky, surely someone would take notice and get rid of them?

The sequence in which Harry s Defense Against the Dark Arts class are fighting a Boggart was also done quite effectively. A Boggart can change into whatever the person standing before it fears the most, and seeing it morph from Professor Snape (who one poor boy, Neville Longbottom, fears above all else) to many other things, such as a huge spider, a snake, and much more, was very attention-grabbing.

Another aspect of this film I did enjoy was the acting. Radcliffe, Grint, and Watson were all wonderful as they carried on their roles portraying our three favorite heroes/heroines, and I m still surprised by how they are able to bring the characters to life so well at their young age. Gary Oldman as Sirius Black was very intimidating, and you could really believe that he had gone mad from being in Azkaban. Oldman looked a bit different from what I was expecting Black to look like, but his acting was just right for the role. (There was another unintentionally funny thing with Black, though: at one point, while looking at a picture of Black (pictures in the wizarding world can move), he started strangling himself. He usually just stands there and screams in the pictures, but the one time he just started to strangle himself. Random. Ridiculous. Had me laughing for quite a while.) David Thewlis as Professor R.J. Lupin was also very well cast. Thewlis made a very good Lupin, bringing his thoughtfulness and smarts across as I believe no other actor could. Alan Rickman was a treat, as always, in his role of Professor Severus Snape, who teaches Potions, and also happens to loathe Harry and isn t afraid to show it. The most memorable moment was, of course, when we got to see him in a dress (complete with a large hat) when Neville was fighting the Boggart and trying to make Snape seem less frightening. And Tom Felton makes a great Draco Malfoy. Malfoy is Harry s rival and is very easy to hate, and I sure do. Felton is very snotty and superior, just as Malfoy is supposed to be. In the movie, I was shocked (and started laughing) when Malfoy began to cry during a scene where Hermione got angry with him (and eventually ended up punching him in the face). Emma Thompson as Professor Trelawney is also to be noted; she was an excellent choice for the zany, large-eyed Divination teacher who has a certain love for predicting Harry s death.

I enjoyed the music very much for this movie as well. It was just amazing. Every scene had the right music to go with it, whether it be the craziness of the Knight Bus (the bus that wizards use to travel, which can zoom at outrageous speeds) or the triumph as Harry rides on Buckbeak (though I found that scene to be pretty ridiculous. At least it had fitting music to go with it). The children s choir in the Great Hall was also quite fun; the eerie, medieval sound offered by the choir was interesting and caught my attention. All in all, John Williams did a superb job with the music for this film.

The Prisoner of Azkaban really seemed to be far below the standards set by the previous two films in the series, but it was still an enjoyable film. I would see it again. But I really, really hope that things go better with the fourth movie, because this was disappointing after seeing just how wonderful the Harry Potter films could be. There were aspects in this movie that prove that Cuaron could have a very promising career by directing the rest of the Harry Potter films, and I hope that in the fourth film he fulfills his potential. I was torn between three and four stars, and I opted for 3 because this just wasn t as good as it could ve been.