Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban (PG) Review

Overall Rating

Fantastic special effects
Wonderfull casting
Romping yarn
Fast paced action

Too short to include all the subtleties of the book.

Having thoroughly enjoyed the book I was looking forward to the movie with keen anticipation. The new director makes the whole magical world of Harry Potter darker than Chris Columbus's first two movies and much more in line with my mental image from reading the books. I was a little surprised by some of the changes the new director brought to Hogwarts such as the addition of a huge clock to the main entrance to the school, the mysterious relocation of Hagrid's house and the Whomping Willow not to mention the change of 'The Fat Lady' to Dawn French (not that she gives a bad performance it was just a surprise to see her after establishing another actor in the role for the last two movies).

The actors, in particular the kids, all turn in fantastic performances and the casting of new characters is highly effective and very sympathetic to Rowling's original text (personally I was almost expecting to see Francis De La Tour as Prof. Trelawney but, while not quite fitting my mental image, Emma Thompson does a fabulous job). Michael Gambon seems to have been born to play Dumbledore and brings a sense of mischievousness to the role that I hadn't got from the late and much missed Richard Harris, although Gambon's Irish lilt did come as something of a surprise.

As we have come to expect the special effects are superb throughout the film, highlights being Buckbeak (the hippogriff), the Dementors and the scene with the Boggart is an absolute hoot (Rickman must have had a ball in the shooting of that scene). The Hogwarts ghosts have increased in number and the addition of 'The Headless Hunt' was a nice touch - although I don't remember reading anything about giant giraffes walking through the pictures in the school!

The plot is, as one would hope, reasonably true to J K Rowling's original text although, as with the previous two movies, there is so much to cram in that much of the detail and subtlety of the story is glossed over or left out all together. I know that this movie is aimed at a young audience who may get fidgety after a while. I would have hoped that the director might have stretched the movie by 15-20 mins and taken a little more time over the story and taken the opportunity to include some more of Rowling's expertly crafted detail.

When all's said and done these are really just knit-picking comments about what is generally a fantastic movie - It's packed with action, magic and is a great story. If you enjoyed the first two films then you're going to love ..The Prisoner of Azkaban - as was the case with the book it's so much more than the two that came before. That said if you came to love Harry Potter through the books the amount of detail that has been glossed over or simply omitted may disappoint, but not as much as it did with the first two films as this is just so much better a movie than we have come to expect from the previous two films.

Members' Comments onSpeedDemon's Review

• pasqualt3 on 7th Jun 2004

  You hit the nail on the head unfortunately for the one thing I most missed in this film, long and detailed. Oh sure the first two could drag a bit but this one flew by so fast I never had time to be drawn into the new characters or even the intense sequences. I was told by all to read this book as I was thoroughly lost during the 2nd film. So I took the time to read it and really enjoyed most of it. I realized that even in the book the 1st half was rather boring but it set up issues Hermione had with getting to classes and the problem with Crookshank and Scabblers. And the scene with Peter Pettigrew was intense in the book and totally over looked in the movie. The whole thing was so rushed even the actors seemed like they were told "we've got to film this while you're still young" and he was't joking cause boy they have grown up quick. And I've heard that this one was closest to the book but I just wished things like Dursley's house were completely removed in favor of the real issues in the movie. Like the history of the Marauders' map or Harry's image's of his parent's and how they haunted him. Instead there was Malfoy blowing a paper crane or Harry flying over the castle? Really I didn't get the same feeling in this film as the rest I just wish more time was put into plot development.