Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Theatrical Release

Messrs. Moony, Padfoot, Wormtail, and Prongs suggest that you get to a theater as soon as possible!

The gang and I went back again we go to the world of wizards and witches today. This time we have a different tour guide, and it makes for a very different trip.

It's a bit more "real", frighteningly so in spots. Chris Columbus deals in a very primary colored palette in all his films, and the first two in this series were no exception. Lots of sparkles and, "Oh WOW!" moments. With Cuarón, things are no longer quite so clean and bright. There is dirt, and things are a bit faded. When the El shakes the dust down in his room in the Leaky Cauldron you start to see it. The divide between the Muggle and Wizarding worlds has narrowed, and some of that ethereal feeling of the first films has gone, to be replaced with a grim sense that something is moving under the surface and it's not going to be good when it comes up.

The effects weren't thrown about quite so lavishly as before, but what was there was stellar. The reader-eating book was great. I want one. The boggart's shape-shifts were handled beautifully. The Womping Willow's habit of eating cute birdies is just a light note foreshadowing the frightening whipping of its branches. Using it as a device to note the changing seasons was a great touch. Buckbeak was an amazing achievement of both modeling and design. They took the motley collection of animals that are usually used to describe it and somehow made it one whole thing - a hippogriff. For the three people who don't already know the story I won't go on about the rest of the effects, but know you are in good hands.

Michael Gambon's Dumbledore is perhaps a bit truer to the books than Richard Harris, but Harris left a stamp on the character that's hard to forget. Harris had a magisterial way about him that there was just not enough beard and robes to hide, and the very best impish twinkle I've ever seen. It's supposed to be there for later, but it was also supposed to be a bit better hidden. You would never have imagined Harris's Dumbledore going on about socks in front of the Mirror of Erised. With Gambon, you would. He did a really good job of carrying on, but combining Gambon's lower-key performance the way they costumed him and the darker cast of the whole film and the character just feels odd, somehow. It was the way he should have been in the first place, though, so I applaud the performance. As we progress from here he'll be able to make the character more his own, and I believe he'll do a fine job of it.

David Thewlis as Remus Lupin was a joy. He is played in the books as one of the kindest, sanest adults Harry knows (he and Arthur Weasley, who also plays a good scene). He is intelligent, good with the kids, and a genuinely good teacher despite his monthly problem. He really makes a connection with the kids. Anyone who hands out all that chocolate has a good start, anyways. The quiet competence Thewlis displays through all their adventures goes a long way to anchoring the story, and makes his actions in the Shrieking Shack make more sense. The werewolf transformation sequence is ghastly, but the aftermath is very intriguing. They didn't just go out and turn him into a dog. He's still got a lot of human to him, and it makes him even more frightening, I think.

Oldman's Sirius Black was well done, but they had problem that I'm not sure they overcame. How do you create a character with nothing but screaming posters and one glimpse of a big dog? By the time they get to him, things are already at such a pitch it's hard to get to the person who was strong enough to somehow keep a hold of his love for his friends and need for revenge through 12 years of the Dementor's feedings. That scene right before Oldman flies off on Buckbeak is really as close as you get.

The other newcomer - Emma Thompson's Professor Trelawney - was well introduced. Emma did a great job of breaking out of her usual mannered performance and she handled both the theatrics and the real manifestations of Trelawney's power brilliantly. The performance was as over-the-top as her text in the book gave you to imagine. The only sore point was the way they minimized several of the scenes; the sub-thread with her and Hermione suffered for it.



I was delighted with the way Harry aged. One guy was complaining about it to his buddy on the way out of our showing, and I suggested they both visit a fifth-grade classroom and then a 7th-grade one. Each book means a year has gone by, and the huge difference between the 11-year-old Harry of the first film and this gangly 13-year-old is far from out of the ordinary. His voice is settling into a nice baritone, and unfortunately those teenage mood swings are here, too. The child he was could not have carried off his behavior to Aunt Marge without sounding like a toddler throwing a fit. As it was, it was far too like my house for my comfort.

The rest of the characters followed suit, too. Hermione could switch clothes with either of my 13-year-old daughters, and I can just see them all in the bathroom commiserating over the curse of curling hair. Ron is turning into the young giant of the books, and while they didn't give him a lot to work with story-wise what he had was handled pretty well. We all had a glimpse of Malfoy in the trailers so it wasn't quite the shock it could have been, but they've all grown. Neville Longbottom is almost unrecognizable. Their decision to keep even the bit players as the same actors was a great touch that makes it so you don't have to have a program just to tell who all the players are every time.

There are things to miss, and to mourn. The Marauder’s Map is just beautiful and is presented almost word for word out of the book by Fred and George, but beyond that there is no link made to the whole side-thread of where it came from that connected the story together. It would have helped support some of the ending of the film, and the ties that it forges in the latter books. After the scene of the boys sharing those wizard candies in the beginning I was expecting Honeydukes to be a bit more, well, magical. The Quidditch match is given short shrift - Harry might as well have just dived straight into a dementor and got it over with. The loss of the second match where Malfoy and company fake a dementor makes it worse. So much of the mayhem with Sirius was kept that it felt like the personal connections he makes really get short shrift, particularly with the loss of the thread detailing his relationship to Harry's father.

All in all, I enjoyed the film very much. It made the story more present than the other films did, and it gave it a weight they lacked. This film is far more a good film than it is necessarily a good Harry Potter story, and it’s a great platform to start the next one off right.

Mischief managed......

Kid Factor:
The scope of the mayhem in this film is actually smaller than the other two. Aunt Marge being inflated is not so much funny as frightening, and the Dementors give me the creeps. Also, there is a lot of teenage angst floating around. If your child is under 8, I'd probably see it myself without them first to make the call.