Director: Alfonso Cuar�n
Writer: Steve Kloves (based on the novel by J.K. Rowling)
Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Michael Gambon, Maggie Smith, Robbie Coltrane, David Thewlis, Alan Rickman, Gary Oldman, Tom Felton, Emma Thompson.
Year Released: 2004
Harry Potter 3 Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) has quite improved as an actor (not that he was ever bad), and certainly he has a quiet screen strength. In fact, this is a very well acted film. Well directed to boot, from the get go to, errr... uhm, almost to the end. The film's pace, acting, composition, cinematography, moody dark lighting and well-integrated score create a magical cinematic experience with greater depth, grit and maturity than the previous two. It's truly enjoyable, and I for one can find nothing wrong with the first two hours.
Potter is feistier this time around, more assertive, less patient, less a spectator in his own film (as I'd previously made mention of in the earlier Potter1 and Potter2 films). Aesthetically composed images role well with the special effects which are no longer spectacle on their own, but rather stimulating by way of idea, invention, and art.
Additionally, the story is fun, curious and somewhat unfettered by a sort of generic formula and those usual assumptions of what is acceptable in a "children's book." This Potter is thirteen and he's up for a little revenge. Although, the prisoner (after which the film is titled) is noticeably absent from most of the production.
Which brings me to, well, the unpleasantry. While viewing, I was hoping to herald this film as one of the best of the year. Unfortunately, as the picture spreads its wings and gallops into a climactic emotional arc, the arc bends, breaks, perhaps. And while some of the events/twists of the "extended ending" are somewhat interesting, they lack the momentum created so artfully earlier. In short, an excellent film, overstays its welcome with an over-evented, under-climactic ending. This shortcoming drops my rating from an A (dare I say, I was even thinking A+ at some points) to an overall A-
In the opening scene of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry turns his piggish aunt (Pam Ferris) into a Veruca Salt-sized balloon and watches gleefully as she floats off into the stratosphere with his shrewish foster family the Dursleys almost literally in tow. The young sorcerer, no longer a boy but not yet a man, is finally manifesting those raging teen hormones in the magic he practices, and begins at long last to suggest the world Potter inhabits will finally be occupied by kids who are about as awkward, emotional and uncertain as those in our own. Sadly, however, the rest of the film largely skirts the idea of Harry�s developing maturity beyond its minimal exploration in this opening scene, and returns the character to the familiar territory of Hogwarts for another set of misadventures that only he and his two best pals could uncover. The material�s resolute darkness (courtesy director Alfonso Cuar�n) notwithstanding, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is a frequently entertaining film, but it doesn�t progress nearly far enough beyond the fantasy worlds of the first two installments. Rather, its familiar brand of witchcraft keeps the audience fleetingly enthralled with the same sorts of mischief-making as the first two films, but fails to broaden the intellectual and emotional worlds of its characters or author J.K. Rowling�s expansive universe.
After �accidentally� inflating Aunt Marge, Harry flees the Dursleys for fear he�ll suffer punishment at their hands or those of the Ministry of Magic, which forbids students from using magic in the regular world. Instead of being caught, Harry is picked up by the Knight Bus, which whisks him off to a magicians� pub called the Leaky Cauldron, where he is intercepted by the curiously forgiving Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge (Robert Hardy) and sent back to Hogwarts for his third year of study. Before long, however, Harry deduces why Fudge has been so gracious: Sirius Black (Gary Oldman), the man believed responsible for his parents� deaths, has escaped imprisonment at Azkaban and appears to be en route to finishing the job he started with the elder Potters. Adding to Harry�s mounting troubles are the Dementors, the wraithlike guards of Azkaban, who will let nothing and no one interfere with their retrieval of Black, and who have taken up unofficial residence outside the grounds of Hogwarts. Thankfully, a new professor named Lupin (David Thewlis) - who teaches Defense Against the Dark Arts - takes an odd shine to Harry, and promises to help him resist the imminent danger that seems only to grow with each passing day. The problem with The Prisoner of Azkaban is not that there aren�t the same kinds of thrilling, transcendent moments that run recurrent in the previous films. It�s just that they are too few and far between here to keep the audience captivated, especially when this installment is so heavy on story that we can scarcely catch our breath before the next twist, turn, or double-cross is revealed.
In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that I�ve never read any of the �Harry Potter� novels, but as in any big screen adaptation, all of those meticulous and minute details that are necessarily easier to convey in the pages of the novel must either be condensed or abandoned outright for the sake of visual and narrative fluidity. Director Alfonso Cuar�n (Y Tu Mam� Tambi�n) bathes the film in sepulchral cinematography that more accurately reflects the darker tones of the source material, but never quite achieves the uneasy balance between playful and scary that�s needed to effectively convey the world of grown-up magic as experienced by three kids who are taking their first steps towards adulthood. There are moments of sublime beauty - such as when Harry takes Buckbeak the Hippogriff for a flight across the grounds of Hogwarts - but they�re levered against so many plot details that we can�t help but wonder why we�re watching them when so much information still has yet to reveal itself. In keeping with the superlative tradition of the two previous films, the performances are consistently spot-on for both the characters that we are intimately familiar and those that we are being introduced to for the first time. The toughest part for the three leads - Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson � seems not to be making magic believable, but growing up on camera. Though each has his or her weak moments, they are dutifully uplifted by their more experienced co-stars.
David Thewlis (Timeline) proves himself a remarkably charming and supportive role model for Harry and his pals, despite his weasely countenance (much less his impeccably rakish filmography), while Gary Oldman is as formidable an adversary (whether as a film�s villain or as an actor�s co-star) as any performer is likely to have, without ever stealing any of his scenes outright. Oldman spends much of the film growling at the audience from the �Wanted� bills posted on every street corner and pub pin-up wall, projecting menace from one endlessly repeated image, but amazingly, his inevitable confrontation with Harry finds a humanity that one would hardly expect to come from the film�s purported villain. Still, the film�s seemingly unwitting witches-brew of other sci-fi tomes nearly undoes the magic for older fans who have seen such fantasy-horror tome series as The Neverending Story, Evil Dead, and The Lord of the Rings. Harry�s Hippogriff ride too closely resembles Atreyu�s Luck Dragon journeys in Neverending, while his Book of Monsters crawls around and attacks its owner much like the Book of the Dead did the hapless Ash in Army of Darkness; even the genuinely frightening Dementors recall the Rings series� ringwraiths. Though the big screen fantasy realm seems to be virtually overrun of late with cross-references, homages and in-jokes, Rowling�s fertile imagination seems like more than a match for the stolid creativity of her cinematic competitors (see Van Helsing for Exhibit A), and deserves a yet-to-be-seen big screen incarnation that matches the dense and vivid storytelling tapestry of her novels. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in U.S. theaters today gushing with a wealth of goodwill from theatergoers in London (not to mention $8.75 million in advance ticket sales), but one wonders if audiences stateside will regard Cuar�n�s interpretation of the Potter legend with as much enthusiasm. Ultimately, Cuar�n�s new bag of tricks works by half, lending the series a much-needed dose of credibility and a directorial vision that aims for substance over spectacle. At the same time, he�s made a summer movie that creates no excitement for its characters, which is especially disappointing in the case of ones as beloved as those in the Harry Potter series. His Azkaban adventure teaches the same old Potter lessons through an entangled plot that few will follow and, more importantly, only hardcore fans are likely to care about. All things being relative this summer movie season, Harry Potter�s latest big screen incantation makes for a perfectly enchanted evening at your local cinema. But sadly, it�s a spell whose effect - though effectively and expertly cast - will not likely last much longer than the time it takes to watch it.
The bold choice of Cuar�n was a step in the right direction, but there�s no doubt that much more can still be done with the characters in the future to develop them as classic screen personalities. I just wish they�d taken that opportunity before the fourth or fifth films in the series.
I've just returned from London, where Daniel Radcliffe created a stir by speculating that his famous character, Harry Potter, might have to die at the end of the series. Certainly that seems like more of a possibility in "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban," the third Potter film, than it did in the first two. It's not that Harry, Ron and Hermione are faced with any really gruesome dangers (there's nothing here on the order of the spider that wrapped up Frodo for his dinner in the "Ring" trilogy), but that Harry's world has grown a little darker and more menacing.
The film centers on the escape of the sinister Sirius Black (Gary Oldman) from Azkaban Prison; Sirius was convicted in Voldemort's plot to murder Harry's parents, and now it's suspected he must finish the job by killing Harry. As Harry returns for his third year at Hogwarts, grim wraiths named Dementors are stationed at every entrance to the school to ward off Sirius, but the Dementors are hardly reassuring, with their trick of sucking away the soul essence of their victims.
Harry, too, has developed an edge. We first met him as the poor adopted relative of a suburban family that mistreated him mercilessly; this time, Harry is no longer the long-suffering victim but zaps an unpleasant dinner guest with a magical revenge that would be truly cruel if it were not, well, truly funny. Harry is no longer someone you can mess with.
Harry and his friends Ron and Hermione (Rupert Grint and Emma Watson) return to a Hogwarts that boasts, as it does every school year, peculiar new faculty members (this school policy promises years of employment for British character actors). New this year are Professor Lupin (David Thewlis), who tutors Harry in a tricky incantation said to provide protection against the dark magic of Sirius, and Professor Sybil Trelawney (Emma Thompson), whose tea readings don't pull punches-- not when she gazes into the bottom of Harry's cup and sees death in the leaves.
To distract Harry from his presumed fate, his friend the gamekeeper Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane) introduces the three friends to a wondrous new beast named Buckbeak, which is a hippogriff, half bird, half horse, wholly misunderstood. When a werewolf begins to prowl the grounds, a battle between the two creatures is inevitable. Who could the werewolf be by day? Does no one at Hogwarts find the Latin root of lupus suggestive?
Among the movie's many special effects, I especially admired the gnarled tree that figures in the third act. The tree is introduced with a wink to the viewer who knows it is CGI: It shakes melting snow from its branches, and some of the snow seems to plop on the camera lens. Beneath this tree is a warren that shelters unimaginable terrors for Ron, when he is dragged into it as part of a longer climactic sequence that plays tricks with time. First the three heroes witness one version of events, and then, after reversing the flow of time, they try to alter them. The ingenuity of the time-tricks worked for me but may puzzle some of the film's youngest viewers.
Chris Columbus, who made the first two Potter films, remains as producer but replaces himself as director with Alfonso Cuaron, director of the wonderful "A Little Princess" (1975) and the brilliant "Y Tu Mama Tambien." Cuaron continues the process, already under way in "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets," of darkening the palette. The world of the first film, with its postal owls and Quiddich matches, seems innocent now, and although there is indeed a Quiddich match in this film, it's played in a storm that seems to have blown in from "The Day After Tomorrow." I like what Cuaron does with the look of the picture, but found the plotting a little murky; just when we should be focusing on exactly who Sirius Black is and why he killed Harry's parents, there is the sudden appearance of a more interesting if less important character, Peter Pettigrew (Timothy Spall), a real rat who undergoes a change of purpose.
The actors playing Harry, Ron and Hermione have outgrown their childhoods in this movie, and by the next film will have to be dealt with as teenagers, or replaced by younger actors. If they continue to grow up, I'm afraid the series may begin to tilt toward less whimsical forms of special effects violence, but on the other hand I like Radcliffe, Grint and Watson, and especially the way Watson's Hermione has of shouldering herself into the center of scenes and taking charge. Although the series is named for Harry, he's often an onlooker, and it's Hermione who delivers a long-delayed uppercut to the jaw of Draco Malfoy.
Unlike American movies such as "Spy Kids," where the young actors dominate most of their scenes, the Harry Potter movies weave the three heroes into a rich tapestry of character performances. Here I savored David Thewlis as a teacher too clever by half, Emma Thompson as the embodiment of daffy enthusiasm, Alan Rickman as the meticulously snippy Snape, Robbie Coltrane as the increasingly lovable Hagrid, and Michael Gambon, stepping into the robes and beard of the late Richard Harris as Dumbledore.
Is "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" as good as the first two films? Not quite. It doesn't have that sense of joyously leaping through a clockwork plot, and it needs to explain more than it should. But the world of Harry Potter remains delightful, amusing and sophisticated; the challenge in the films ahead will be to protect its fragile innocence and not descend into the world of conventional teen thrillers.
Here's Harry, thirteen years old and bursting with adolescent spunk, doing forbidden things with his wand under the blankets in his Privet Drive bedroom in the middle of the night. He's practicing "extreme incantations" -- when Hogwarts students aren't supposed to be doing magic outside of school at all -- and delighting in pissing off unctuous Uncle Vernon in the process. All completely innocent... except this is now adventurous Mexican director Alfonso Cuar�n playing in J.K. Rowling's magical sandbox, the Alfonso Cuar�n whose Y Tu Mama Tambien is the most insightful movie I've ever seen about teenagers and sex, and I with my dirty mind can't help but think about the suggestive subtext of a teenage boy fooling around with his wand under the blankets in the middle of the night.
But no, there's nothing dirty about it, not really -- Cuar�n is just having fun with the neverwhere between childhood and adolescence in a deliciously metaphoric way that Chris Columbus wouldn't or couldn't venture near in Sorcerer's Stone and Chamber of Secrets. Partly that's a function of the increasing sophistication of Rowling's story as her hero grows up; mostly it has to do with the fact that Cuar�n is an infinitely more sophisticated filmmaker than Columbus. I loved Columbus's Harry Potter because it was Harry Potter, not because it was great film; I adore Cuar�n's Harry Potter because it's pretty darn near a great film that just so happens to be Harry Potter, too. This is a children's movie that grownups don't have to be embarrassed to love.
Creepy and visceral, this truly is a grim fairy tale, in which Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) faces greater fears and greater dangers than ever. And I'm not talking about Sirius Black (Gary Oldman: Hannibal), the madman who's escaped from the wizard prison of Azkaban and seems to have it in for Harry, because what powerful lunatic wizard doesn't? Before Harry even arrives back at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for his third year there, it's clear that the peril to Harry will come mostly from within himself. Cuar�n -- and returning screenwriter Steve Kloves (Wonder Boys) -- treat hostile, moody adolescence in a downright Kings-ian manner. Stephen King, that is: Harry is full of rage and verging on relishing too much the potent occult power he commands, and the explosion of furious magic he aims at Uncle Vernon's (Richard Griffiths: Sleepy Hollow) sister, Aunt Marge (Pam Ferris: Death to Smoochy), reminded me of Carrie at the prom, finally bullied and abused beyond a breaking point. Not that Marge doesn't richly deserve her comeuppance -- which is gratifying in a blackly whimsical way that invokes Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory -- but it disturbed me in a way that the books didn't until the fifth installment: What happened to our little boy, our nice, sweet Harry?
If Rowling's genius is in not letting her kid characters stagnate but in choosing deliberately to explore their maturation in a way that few, if any, examples of children's literature have done before, then the films' producers' is in choosing someone like Cuar�n to take the reins for Prisoner of Azkaban. Not only is Harry getting prickly, but his friends Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) and Hermione Granger (Emma Watson) are growing out of their childhood skins in unexpected ways, and Cuar�n plays everything about their lives in a minor key. The soundtrack rings with familiar themes, now presented in simple arrangements on ancient instruments rather than the lush orchestrations of the first two films. The sets are full of mysterious corners and secrets like they weren't before; the Leaky Cauldron pub now looks genuinely old and decrepit; the castle that houses Hogwarts now sits among a much rockier, rougher landscape. Colors are muted, and the use of handheld cameras lends an intimacy and sometimes a claustrophobia that's exactly right. Even the costumes reflect the squirmy at-oddness of a character's frame of mind: the tie of Harry's school uniform is always askew.
Prisoner of Azkaban may be too intense for very young children, but I don't mean to give the impression that it's unrelentingly bleak. The humor, too, is correspondingly more sophisticated, measured in the cleverness of Cuar�n's little touches: the students' faces painted in their house colors as they cheer on a quidditch match, the wizard in The Leaky Cauldron reading A Brief History of Time, the magical notes passed surreptitiously in class, even the Monty Python-esque hint about the Whomping Willow shedding its leaves all at once in the autumn. But even the laugh-out-loud stuff -- like the outrageously funny sequence on the Knight Bus, the wizard take on mass transit -- sends a weird little tickle of uneasiness down your spine: these magic people are nice but odd in a fundamental way.
There's mood here, slightly uncomfortable, often utterly scary mood. This -- yes! -- is what a Harry Potter movie should look like, should be, was meant to be, a big box of dark, bitter, luscious chocolate.
Fans of J.K. Rowling and her rousing fantasy series rejoice. Courtesy of edgy director Alfonso Cuaron ( "A Little Princess," "Y Tu Mama Tambien"), you're finally getting a movie worthy of your passion.
Cuaron knows his way around the dark edges of a psyche, and Harry Potter's (Daniel Radcliffe) is ripe for the picking as he hurtles his way into the unfettered energy of his burgeoning adolescence.
Comfortably ensconced back at Hogwarts after a miserable summer at the home of the dysfunctional Dursleys, Harry dives headfirst into the obligations of his third year. There's a grab-bag of magical mischief to be had and new professors to endure, including mysterious Professor Lupin (David Thewlis), the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher who schools Harry in a plot-crucial Patronus Charm, and loony-moony Divination Professor Sibyll Trelawney (Emma Thompson), who maintains an eerie prescience of Harry's future.
Despite the talismanic shenanigans, a pall of impending doom fills the air. Menacing wizard Sirius Black (Gary Oldman), who may have been instrumental in the death of Harry's parents, has escaped from Azkaban prison and is allegedly searching for the young master.
With the sinister and skeletal Dementors standing sentry at the gates of Hogwarts (poised to suck the joyful soul from their enemies), an enchanted Marauder's Map to decipher and a Quidditch championship to defend, the ultimate teen wizard has got a lot on his mystical mind.
The beauty of "Potter"'s third installment lies in the attention to detail: the lyrical perfection of the half-horse, half-eagle Hippogriff lifting Harry onto his back and into the skies with breathtaking finesse; subtle matters of the heart involving Hermione (Emma Watson) and Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint); a rogue's gallery of mischievous portraitures.
The undercurrent of malevolence flourishes courtesy of Cuaron's cinematic black heart, but the director sidesteps the pitfalls of patent good vs. evil by drafting his characters and their actions in shades of moral gray.
The lengthy narrative overflows with powerhouse moments, among them a drop-dead confrontation between enigmatics Thewlis and Oldman -- two of our generation's finest and most outrageous talents. A nasty climactic encounter with the dreaded Dementors renders this PG-rated fiction pure 13-plus material.
Cuaron has fashioned Rowling's imaginative text into a visually and emotionally satisfying stunner. Third time's the charm, indeed.
It's interesting to note that, of the three Harry Potter novels thus far filmed, the longest on the written page has turned into the shortest on screen. This is a good thing, because it means that the filmmakers are becoming less literal and more cinematic in their adaptations. A flaw of the first two movies, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, is that they tried to cram every nuance into the screenplay - an act that had a negative impact upon the films' pacing. For Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, script-writer Steve Kloves has pared J.K. Rowling's story to its essence, resulting in a more streamlined motion picture.
Although Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban stands well enough on its own, it has a "middle chapter" feeling. In other words, there's no real beginning or ending. Little is resolved and the film's climax is low-key. The villain of the first two chapters and the overall series, the dreaded Voldemort, is absent. His apparent replacement is Sirius Black (Gary Oldman), although appearances can be deceiving. All of this doesn't make The Prisoner of Azkaban inferior to its predecessors. The appeal is much the same, but the "feel" is a little different. The tone is darker and more claustrophobic. I attribute this to the change in directors. Chris Columbus, who helmed the first two movies, has stepped into the producer's chair, leaving the primary behind-the-camera duties to Alfonso Cuar�n (who establishes this closer in nature to A Little Princess than Y Tu Mama Tambien).
Casual Dress If there's a theme to The Prisoner of Azkaban, it's "something wicked this way comes." Those lyrics rattle around in the brain even before they make an explicit appearance. There are plenty of candidates for who can fill the "wicked" role: the convicted killer Sirius Black, who apparently is determined to eliminate Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe); the vile Dementors, who are pursuing Black and look like Ghosts of Christmas Future; nasty Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton), the school bully; or Professor Snape (Alan Rickman), who dresses in black and sneers most wonderfully. For Harry, now in his third year at Hogwart's School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, it becomes increasingly difficult to tell friend from foe. While there are no questions about his best pals Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson), nor about Headmaster Dumbledore (Michael Gambon), what about the secretive new professor, Lupin (David Thewlis)? Or Sybil Trelawney (Emma Thomspon), who sees ominous things in crystal balls? For Harry, surviving his encounters with Sirius Black and the Dementors means unraveling the truth about whose betrayal of his parents led to their deaths.
There's no question that Cuar�n has put his stamp on this movie. The return of so many familiar characters will keep viewers comfortable, but the stylistic changes make it seem as if this Harry Potter adventure is taking place in a different universe. The most obvious change is to Hogwarts. Although outwardly the same, the school is photographed and presented in a manner that makes it more ominous and less friendly than in the previous two installments. Wardrobe is another seemingly minor yet significant alteration. Harry, Ron, and Hermione have abandoned the school uniforms that were their standard garb in The Sorcerer's Stone and The Chamber of Secrets. Instead, they dress in "normal" clothing: sweatshirts, jeans, sneakers, etc. This has the effect of making Hogwarts feel more alien than before.
Moments of character development are widely spaced. (That has a lot to do with the deeper cuts made to the source material.) Still, we learn a few things about Harry's background. The Malfoy/Potter feud enters another chapter. And we see the beginnings of a tentative affection between Ron and Hermione. (The two of them exchange glances and hold hands. There's little question where Rowling is going with this relationship, especially considering the predictability of romance in fantasy stories.)
Atkins Diet Gone WildAs in all long-running series, there are some comings and goings. Although Kenneth Branagh is not back (nor was it expected that he would return, considering the fate of his character), his ex-wife, Emma Thompson, joins the cast as the eccentric professor of divination. She doesn't have much screen time, but makes an impression. David Thewlis, a solid character actor, is Professor Lupin. As Dumbledore, Michael Gambon replaces the late Richard Harris without missing a beat - some viewers may not even notice the change in actors. The most significant newcomer may be Gary Oldman. It's a tricky role that he handles deftly. Finally, Nearly Headless Nick (John Cleese) didn't just end up on the cutting room floor - he was excised from the screenplay. Since even a little Cleese is better than no Cleese, here's hoping he makes a return in the future.
The lead trio - Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson - are growing at about the same rate as their characters. All are likable and recognizable, and the hope is that they will be able to continue in these roles until the series ends. (Re-casting any of the parts mid-stream would be a mistake.) Of the three, Radcliffe is the weakest actor, but Harry Potter isn't the kind of character who demands amazing range. As Luke Skywalker, Mark Hamill wasn't a world-class thespian, but, despite his shortcomings, would anyone have preferred to see him replaced midway through the original Star Wars trilogy?
The recent bankability of fantasy has resulted in a large number of copycat possibilities entering the production pipeline. With both The Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter movies proving to be solid box-office performers, there's little question that the genre is here to stay. Although Tolkien's story is done, J.K. Rowling's has at least four more installments to go (the final two of which haven't even been published). If the filmmakers continue to keep the quality level high, there will be plenty of pleasurable hours ahead. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban proves that a new director with a different perspective can freshen a series that could otherwise resort to stale repetition.
What a bummer when that genial Hollywood company-man Chris Columbus was hired to direct the movie of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001). The adaptation was faithful to a fault, but the picture was a bland, twinkling, Christmassy thing that missed or muffled the book's emotional beats, and it had none of the subversive energy out of which J.K. Rowling's Harry had been forged. I'm not saying Rowling is some kind of Riot Grrrrl. But despite the headmistressy civility of her prose and her insistence on a disciplined and controlled nonconformity, her books express a rage against a certain fascistic strain of the blue-blood English upper crust and their clueless allies, the vulgarly snobbish middle-class mortals known memorably as "muggles." Every book begins with the lonely, friendless, maltreated orphan Harry shut in his room, practicing his magic in secret�just as Rowling must have shut herself away to summon up the pagan fury at the core of each new adventure.
At the time, I suggested that a better filmmaker for Harry would be the Mexican director Alfonso Cuar�n. And now, three years later, we have the third Potter picture, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Warner Bros.), and look who directed it. And look how much better it is than the first two installments! What a call! Should I ask for a finder's fee?
Well, OK, picking Cuar�n wasn't such a stroke of genius. He directed maybe the most evocative live-action kids movie since The Black Stallion (1979), A Little Princess (1995), and his failed modern 1998 Great Expectations (set in Florida and New York's SoHo) was a worthy stab at re-energizing a classic. More important, his approach to constructing a world on film is the opposite of Columbus'. Where the latter works from the top down, dollying into his lavish sets from on high, Cuar�n builds his scenes from below, from deep inside his storybook universe. It helps that the characters' emotions are so vivid. The tactile power of Cuar�n's filmmaking is clear from the first scene, in which Harry (once more Daniel Radcliffe) is discovered under his covers in the middle of the night in that awful Dursley house, doing something naughty. No, it's not what you're thinking: He's playing with his wand. I mean, he's testing out his new potency. I mean ...
There's room for suggestiveness here, because Potter isn't pre-pubescent anymore, and neither is the actor. Harry is a gangly and confused English teen, uncertain both of his right to express himself and the extent of his powers to do so. He's the quintessential prickly hormonal adolescent. When a nasty aunt (Pam Ferris) insults his dead mom and dad, Harry can't contain his rage and blows her up like a barrage balloon. Cuar�n doesn't direct the scene for whimsy: He's one step away from some David Cronenberg vision in which she's splattered all over the walls.
The entrance to Hogwarts' dining hall, with the Glee Club warbling "Double double toil and trouble � Something wicked this way comes!" is both funny and goose-bumpingly operatic. But the palette of this film is scarier: The contrasts are higher, the blacks deeper, and Cuar�n irises in and out of many scenes like a silent Expressionist master. The colors reflect a new uncertainty. Harry is in mortal danger from Sirius Black (Gary Oldman), a wizard who's supposed to have it in for him and who has managed to escape from the prison Azkaban. The guards who pursue Black are possibly worse than he is: cowled, skeletal creatures called Dementors that suck peoples' souls out of their bodies�and that take a mysterious interest in Harry's soul, too.
In truth, those Dementors are not quite as bone-chilling as I'd hoped they'd be, at least compared to Peter Jackson's Ringwraiths in Lord of the Rings. But there's a chilling effect when they hover in the air and pull at their victims' faces like taffy. Harry's pal Ron* (Rupert Grint) says the Dementors make him feel cold, as if he'll never be cheerful again�an evocative description of real adolescent depression. Cuar�n is mindful of these metaphors, so the movie works on more than one level.
Unfortunately, it isn't gangbusters on the first, narrative level. Although possibly the best of the books, Prisoner of Azkaban is very much a middle chapter. It loses momentum in the second half, and there's no climactic wand-off with some super-villain. (Voldemort remains off-screen.) Gary Oldman can be a terrific actor, but he's too finicky, cold, and small of spirit for Sirius Black. (Sean Bean would have been a better choice.) And Michael Gambon, replacing the late Richard Harris as the top wizard, Dumbledore, can't resist camping it up. The happy additions are the always enigmatically lewd David Thewlis as a mysterious professor named Lupin (the name hints at his secret) and Emma Thompson as a spaced-out, frizzy-haired divination instructor with glasses that triple the size of her eyeballs. She's proof that even wizards have their New Age pseudoscientists; and she gives Emma Watson's delectable Hermione a chance to show that girls can be more healthily skeptical than boys any day.
Even when Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban runs down, there is so much magic to marvel at: the stranded wizard's night bus that's like a visit from Hayao Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro (1988), with a rasta shrunken head calling out the stops; the giant flying hippogriff, with its body of a horse and head of an eagle; and the whomping willow, which flings the three protagonists around in unprecedented dimensional detail. There's a 3-D texture to those ornate corridors, the oil paintings with their parallel vaudeville routines, the undulating landscape, and the lakes like magnificent fjords. In Cuar�n's hands, the world of Harry Potter doesn't feel like a synthetic movie theme park anymore. It's almost real, Hogwarts and all.
Two years ago after a screening of the second Harry Potter film (Chamber of Secrets), a colleague who had read the subsequent books started talking about them. Since I had just left what I firmly believed was a vast improvement in the cinematic treatments over the original, I stopped him from revealing any sordid details. Harry Potter had finally hooked me. After years of not reading the books, waiting for the movies and walking out of the Sorcerer�s Stone quite disappointed, I was ready. As much as I felt the urge to pick up the third and possibly fourth text now readily available to quench my anticipation for how Harry�s adventures would play out, I chose to just wait for the movie. I could have just let my friend spill the beans since part three is more of a bridge than anything else.
Young Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) is starting to move away from his young status. Sure, he�s only thirteen but we all know what�s going on with that age. That could be why Harry hides underneath his bedsheets dreading a walk-in from his uncle. (C�mon Harry what kind of spells are you really practicing under there?) There�s also an object with munching teeth that can only be soothed by stroking its pelt, but I won�t get into that.
He�s also budding that adolescent anger that puts a glass bubble between him and authority. When you�ve been subjected to as much abuse as Harry has from Uncle Vernon (a dangerously huge Richard Griffiths) and Aunt Petunia (Fiona Shaw) that fury manifests tenfold.
He takes off for his third year at Hogwart�s, meeting up with friends Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson) once again. The front page news and just about every flyer in town warn of the escape of convicted murderer, Sirius Black (Gary Oldman) from Azkaban prison. A group of ghostly watchguards known as the Dementors are on the hunt and an unspoken history suggests that Black is out to finish off Harry for good.
For the first time the series captures the straight-up school experience. We sit there, trying to listen attentively but soon begin to drift off and wonder when recess will get here. A lot of the extraordinary special effects are utilized for background flavor (thankfully) instead of noisily demanding our attention at every turn. We�re inundated with throwaway behavior from the campus� evil tree until it finally gets its own action sequence and easily the film�s best. This year�s Quidditch match (held in the rain) proves to be a bore as does a speeding triple-decker bus through the crowded streets. One of the more amusing (and clever) mysteries of the film is solved during a climactic replay of events (a la Back to the Future Part II), but it takes too long to reach and is lackluster next to Chamber�s giant snake finale.
As its Hardy Boy mysteries go, the Harry Potter stories are becoming tiresome. Voldemort thankfully isn�t Scooby-Dooing around awaiting to be unmasked�again. But at some point you have to start asking with all the mystical potions, gifts of foresight and otherworldly powers, how do these wizards keep fingering the wrong people for these crimes?
Some of the most appealing moments of the film almost never call attention to themselves; subtle motions that suggest a relational growing up between the close friends. (An arm-grab or the way Hermione links herself to Harry with her necklace.) Emma Watson continues to bring presence to Hermione and Radcliffe handles his character�s mood swings a lot better than, say, Hayden Christensen in Attack of the Clones. Grint isn�t given much to do this time around but be his Weasley little self and Draco Malfoy serves no purpose but to taunt and then weaze himself like a little girl every time a comuppance is threatened. Props to Hermione though for delivering the one true crowd pleaser.
Emma Thompson picks up where Kenneth Branagh left off last time as the goofiest of the professors but is used far too sparingly and ultimately adds nothing but more warnings to Harry. Does anyone ever have good news for this kid? The best performance in the film belongs to David Thewlis as the latest one-year term Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Remus Lupin, with his own brand of �don�t ask, don�t tell.� (Just don�t rack your brain too hard about the mystery werewolf roaming around.) He becomes a compassionate father figure for Harry, who is longing for a better homelife, and for a brief shining moment its great to see him, Oldman and Alan Rickman all standing in a room together.
I hesitate to put any blame on incoming director Alfonso Cuaron, since it seems the source material is what I responded less to than the direction. Looking over his resume (A Little Princess, Great Expectations, Y Tu Mama Tambien), it�s clear he loves the theme of growing up. Or simply having adults terrorize children. But Prisoner of Azkaban can�t fulfill the expectations of the next stage of these characters� growth. Believing in oneself is a fine message, but name five popular children�s stories that haven�t repeated that ad nauseum. Is the film really any darker than the previous films? There may be less light, but the tone hasn�t changed that drastically.
Fans of the books, many of whom say get better with each volume, probably won�t be as disappointed as I was. As they continue to get longer (Azkaban was 435 pages while parts 4 & 5 are 752 & 870, respectively) they may have more to gripe with snips in the movie, since this is the shortest of the three to date. I�ll be surprised if they find this one the best of the lot. It�s more setup, less payoff and more of the same with the supposedly perfect choice of Cuaron who plays it too safe choosing to rather endanger the hair on the kids� heads instead of sprouting new ones.
Funny, thrilling and, yes, somewhat enchanting, Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban is widely regarded as the best book of JK Rowling's phenomenally successful series. It is certainly the best film. Leaner and meaner than its workmanlike predecessors, it sees the boy wizard (a maturing Daniel Radcliffe) return to Hogwarts School Of Witchcraft And Wizardry, where he's sought by the freshly-escaped and famously evil Sirius Black (Gary Oldman). With the help of Professor Lupin (the excellent David Thewlis), Potter must unravel the mystery around Sirius, control his own teenage temper, and deal with the deadly Dementors...
Looking like The Lord Of The Rings' Black Riders suffering all-over Athlete's Foot, these ghastly creatures are the soul-sucking guardians of Azkaban, who are hunting Sirius and have an unhealthy interest in our hero, too. That the powers-that-be employ such indiscriminately vicious creatures as their law-enforcers doesn't make much sense, but neither does the taut, exciting conclusion of this magical caper. And, really, it doesn't matter. Once new director Alfonso Cuar�n (who replaced Chris Columbus) picks up the pace after an uneven opening hour, asking too many questions just doesn't feel in-keeping with the spirit of things. Instead, you're encouraged to sit back and buy into a fantastical world.
The sets are spectacular and the effects largely seamless - impressive even in an age where it feels as if we've seen it all before. The Hippogryff - part-horse, part-eagle - is a charming creation, while inventions such as a magical map (which shows everyone's location within Hogwarts) will grab young imaginations.
The Prisoner Of Azkaban is still not strong enough to win over every Potter-sceptic - it's a little overlong, and never emotionally engrossing - but they will at least find it bearable. Oldman and Thewlis are both exceptional actors and there's enjoyment enough in watching them give life and meaning to even the most mawkish lines. Potter fans, meanwhile, will find it (sorry about this) spellbinding.
Well folks, it�s another year at Hogwarts Academy (two years in real life), and our rapidly maturing stars are back for another round of magical high jinks and mass merchandising in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
Harry�s been absent since the fall of 2002, and even casual viewers will notice that a lot has changed over the last two years. Director Chris Columbus (who did the first two films) is out, replaced with the controversial Alfonso Cuar�n, who last hit the scene with the teen sex romp Y Tu Mam� Tambi�n.
You�ll notice Cuar�n�s touch right away. He likes to pick up the camera and get right in his actor�s faces, moving all the while, a stark contrast to Columbus�s traditionalism. Gone as well are the rich Technicolor tones of the Columbus movies; Cuar�n prefers washed-out, yellowish shading that connotes decay and decrepitude. This is old-school wizardry, not kids stuff. In one fell swoop, Cuar�n has reinvented the movies into an arthouse series that�s as un-kid friendly as it gets.
How you feel about all of that depends on whether you�re old enough to vote. I can�t speak for the kids, but I heard more than one crying jag erupt during Azkaban's 150-minute running time. Will young kids relate to this iteration of Potter? Here�s the story, you be the judge:
Once again, Harry�s living with his cruel aunt and uncle, anxious to return to school. That happens soon enough, and quickly he discovers he�s the target of the titular Prisoner of Azkaban, a wizard named Sirius Black who was convicted for killing dozens of people, most notably Harry�s parents. Now he�s escaped and is making his way toward Hogwarts, ready to snuff young Potter. Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), now a troubled 13-year-old, doesn�t seem overly fazed at first. He�s up to his usual school antics; taking classes, sneaking out to go to town, dodging Draco. It isn�t until Black arrives on the scene for real (well past the midpoint of the movie) that any of this starts to gel into a plot.
And I use that term loosely. I think of myself as an astute follower of stories, but Azkaban can be baffling if you haven�t read the book or don�t have someone nearby to explain who�s who. For those going into this blind, there are soul-sucking dementors (not especially terrifying here), shapeshifting wizards, old friends reunited, and a time travel subplot all coming together into one of the least satisfying d�nouements in fantasy movie history. While it�s riddled with plot holes (which I won�t reveal since they�d spoil the ending), there�s no doubt Harry�s going to come out of it okay: The last half hour of the movie is rehashed from another angle as we run through the time travel bit, reliving the scenes from another angle.
Azkaban the novel gets mixed reviews from Potter maniacs -- some say it's their favorite book; others say it's the worst. However, if my research is correct, it is the worst-selling of the five books to date, and it will probably go down in history as the worst of the movies, too. (But I've been wrong before, of course.) In any case, by all accounts, the books really get good starting at #4 (due out in movie form next year), while Azkaban is a slim volume where comparably little happens. Ultimately Harry is in virtually no peril compared to that in the first two stories and those that follow. Heck, Voldemort doesn�t even show up in this round.
The other notable problem is how radically older the cast has gotten since 2002�s Chamber of Secrets. Radcliffe is valiantly fighting off puberty, but Emma Watson (Hermione) is looking her age; she�s tarted up in jeans and a rainbow belt for most of the film, and sports a more stylish haircut to boot. Now 15, Rupert Grint (Ron) looks like he ought to be starring in the next American Pie movie as a wacky foreign exchange student. And Tom Felton, who plays Draco, is now 17 years old and ought to be playing rugby in college. He probably is. I couldn't believe it was the same actor.
Speaking of actors, Richard Harris is sorely missed as Dumbledore. I love Michael Gambon, but he doesn�t do the kindly old wizard too well. He�s got a Robert Mitchum-esque undercoating of villainy that he just can�t shake. David Thewlis and Gary Oldman are fine as the new blood, but it�s Emma Thompson that steals the show as a doddering divination professor.
The rest of the series remains intact. Twittering ghosts and pictures are as we remember them (Dawn French steals a scene as a portrait of a vain fat lady), the Quidditch match is an abbreviated bust, and Snape (Alan Rickman) is as menacing as ever. But nothing much happens � certainly nothing to enhance any of the characters aside from the tenuous hand-holding of Ron and Hermione � and Azkaban generates very little energy along the way.
I have high hopes that Mike Newell will reinvigorate the series with next year�s Goblet of Fire (how it will clock in at less than 8 hours I have no idea), but I can�t recommend Azkaban for anyone but die-hard Potter heads.
A few colors have been added to "Harry Potter's" palate in "The Prisoner of Azkaban," and they are not likely shades that will appeal to fans of the first two films.
This is a darker world, a world of more complications and uncertainties both physically and emotionally. Characters find themselves scared and unsure more often, and the story doubles back on itself in a breathtaking third act that adds an additional layer of meaning to everything that has come before.
I have already heard from fans of the books who were disappointed with "Azkaban," who wanted more specific explanations and detailed analyses. Unfamiliar with the books, however, I loved this movie. I thought it was a shining improvement over the first two "Potter" installments and, in a comment I never thought I'd say, I would actually love to see "Azkaban" again.
The story itself is far darker from the first films. A prisoner (Gary Oldman) has been released from the notorious prison of Azkaban, and he has his sights set on killing Potter (Daniel Radcliffe). As precautions intensify around Hogwarts, Potter's school of wizardry, Professor Lupin (David Thewlis), a new teacher at the school, starts to befriend Potter and teach him how to fight back.
While investigating just why his life is in danger, Potter make a series of discoveries about his family, and it is revealed that the same prisoner hunting him now also killed his parents when he was young. His fear and trepidation now replaced with fury and a quest for vengeance, Potter awaits the famed prisoner of Azkaban � the hunted becoming the hunter.
The day that the infamous prisoner arrives is then lived out not once but twice, as Potter and his friends Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) and Hermione Granger (Emma Watson) deal with a an intense and scary situation from two completely different perspectives. As the audience, we experience the same shift in perspective, and find ourselves seeing the same series of events through similarly changed eyes.
Directed by Alfonso Cuaron (�Y Tu Mama Tambien�), this is not the rosy, idealized world of Chris Columbus. Characters have fears and neurosis. The story has shifts in tone and mood. Like all great films, we get a "feel" for this movie that is almost indescribable, which is in itself a drastic change from the first, whitewashed films in this series.
To put it another way, I feel as if I could describe a scene from "The Sorcerer�s Stone" or "The Chamber of Secrets" perfectly. I could describe the words, the mannerisms, the camera angles and convey precisely what happened on screen. These films were literal, objective and concrete experiences. But they were also ruthlessly faithful to the novels, and this made fans of the novels incredibly happy.
But there must be more than a rehearsal of the printed word for a movie to be successful. The tone of the book must make its way to the screen, and for this to happen a director must be willing to convey something with the images that transcends what�s apparent in the story or the words. In "The Prisoner of Azkaban," this is exactly what Cuaron has brought to the franchise
A few examples are in order: On Harry's trip out to Hogwarts, an attack on a train is extended and drawn-out. We not only witness his near-fatal encounter with a soul-sucking spirit known as a Dementor, but have time to first feel the confusion, isolation and then fear of a lost, scared child in the dark. Or take the films' turning point - an explosion of life-saving light at the edge of a pond. Not only is the story constructed so that we can witness it twice from vastly different perspectives, but Cuaron intentionally prolongs the dire situation so that the burst of hopeful light deviates that much more in style, presentation, tone and tempo.
These are small changes, but meaningful ones. They result in something visual, aural and cinematic - not literal.
His coup de gras, however, may be an infusing of sexual tension that, at times, almost drips off the screen. I saw this movie with someone who scoffed at the notion, but as these kids become teenagers and hormones start racing, I think it is only natural to assume that some unusual sexual tension will start to pulsate beneath the surface story. Whether it is Harry practicing "wizardry" under his bed sheets, Hermione hugging Ron after a scary moment instead of Harry, or Harry�s ultimate triumph - getting a bigger broomstick - I smirked more than once at the sexual subtleties that have started creeping into this fairy tale.
A perverted Harry Potter? Now things are starting to get interesting!
When we last saw Harry Potter on screen, he was going through a bit of an awkward phase. Stretchy and pale, the bespectacled young wizard, played by a sprouting-into-adolescence Daniel Radcliffe, appeared to be touched by a force -- puberty -- as unruly as any otherworldly spell. But in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry has come out the other side of his growth spurt and looks all the better for it. He's leaner, more handsome, and bolder than before, and that's true, as well, of the movie itself.
In ''The Prisoner of Azkaban,'' Harry faces down assorted foes, including Sirius Black (Gary Oldman), a scraggly escaped convict who may hold a violent grudge against him, and he does it with an authority he hasn't previously shown. Harry also has interludes of jaunty rapture, like his soaring king-of-the-world flight aboard a Hippogriff (half horse, half eagle). All of this has been staged by Alfonso Cuar�n, the Mexican-born director of ''A Little Princess'' and ''Y Tu Mam� Tambi�n'' (he takes the reins from Chris Columbus), with a breathless visual and dramatic flow that only underscores what buggy contraptions the other two ''Harry Potter'' films were. Shot in spooky gradations of silver and shadow, ''The Prisoner of Azkaban'' is the first movie in the series with fear and wonder in its bones, and genuine fun, too.
The droll enchantment of the ''Harry Potter'' books comes from the way that J.K. Rowling turns a child's wild and woolly dream-world of spells, creatures, and sky-high Quidditch matches into something scruffy and Dickensian: transportingly everyday. That was the quality violated by the first two movies. Columbus staged them like the ultimate Muggle, zapping you with each beastie and wizardly doodad. His tone of mechanized japery said, ''Look, here's the next effect! The next blockbuster money shot!'' What was missing was the flippant and addictive offhandedness that Rowling, in her madcap stew of Roald Dahl, the Hardy Boys, ''Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,'' ''The Chronicles of Narnia,'' ''E.T.,'' and ''Star Wars,'' infused into every page.
Right from the start of ''The Prisoner of Azkaban,'' when Harry confronts a tyrannical aunt by forcing a glass to break in her hand -- shades of Sissy Spacek in ''Carrie'' -- the supernatural in this movie has an emotional anchor, and it isn't belabored. Trying to get to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, that magic-mushroom vision of a British prep academy, Harry boards a triple-decker bus for a ride so speedy it's nutzoid, as a shrunken head chatters like a refugee from ''Beetlejuice.'' The whole movie zips along with a matter-of-fact cleverness that stays a step ahead of you.
At Hogwarts, Harry meets several new instructors, like a flighty Divination professor played by Emma Thompson as the most myopic of seers (''Your aura is pulsing, dear,'' she quavers to one student. ''Are you in the beyond?'') and David Thewlis as Professor Lupin, the requisite new Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor. Asked to think of what scares them most, each student readies his or her wand, and the shape-shifting fiend hidden in the cupboard takes the form of their fear -- until it's changed into something laughable. Timid Ron (Rupert Grint) conjures a giant spider; another student calls forth Professor Snape (Alan Rickman), whose dour menace is dissipated when the boy imagines him wearing his grandmother's clothes. As for Harry, his mind drifts toward one of the Dementors -- no, not an obscure group of psychedelic '60s garage rockers, but a chilling phantom with a head like an octopus' and a ghostly body of ashen black. It can suck the soul right out of you, and as it looms up in class, Harry can scarcely contain his tremors. The effects may have come out of a digital lab, but they're never far removed from the characters' heads and hearts.
''The Prisoner of Azkaban'' is still too long, with that slightly arbitrary quality that's better filtered through the fairy-tale tranquillity of Rowling's prose. But Cuar�n, streamlining the book and inventing a few marvels of his own (like most of that Hippogriff ride), has gotten Rowling's spirit on screen. You can feel it in the way the paintings on the Hogwarts walls are animated, in every sense, yet never lose their gilded Renaissance glow, or the doleful way Harry emerges from his Invisibility Cloak after hiding out from the world. The universe here is always in flux: A rat turns into a ratty-looking man, and Harry confronts his fears by literally stepping out of time to gawk at himself. By letting him, and the series, grow up a bit, ''The Prisoner of Azkaban'' turns kids' stuff, once again, into serious play.
Dire warnings, oddball instructors, sneering rivals, faithful friends -- on the surface, "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" looks, shall we say, hauntingly familiar.
Yet what a major difference a few changes have made: With Alfonso Cuaron taking over from Chris Columbus as director and a handful of new additions finding their way into the cast, "Azkaban" turns out to be the most atmospheric, heartfelt and elegantly eerie installment so far. Steve Kloves, who performed screenwriting duties on the first two films, has snappily adapted J.K. Rowling's third book about the young wizard trying to sort out his past, transcend his miserable upbringing among cretinous Muggles (humans) and determine his place in a world of magic and monsters.
"Azkaban" moves swiftly from a hilariously Monty Pythonesque misadventure with Harry's windbag of an aunt (Pam Ferris) into an exciting manhunt involving Sirius Black (a feral-looking Gary Oldman), a renegade sorcerer who somehow escaped from the wizards' prison of Azkaban and is apparently stalking a now-13-year-old Harry (Daniel Radcliffe). "You are in danger -- grave danger!" Harry is told as he journeys back to the supposed safety of Hogwarts for a new year of studies.
But now, thanks to the marvelous craftsmanship of production designer Stuart Craig, even the old school now seems vaguely unfriendly: a choir chants "something wicked this way comes," accompanied by oversized croaking toads; portraits are vandalized; and, most chillingly of all, wraith-like "dementors" hover over the premises, threatening to bestow deadly kisses on their victims.
Drifting globes, slow-swinging pendulums and the grinding gears of a gigantic clock remind us that time is rolling along, and that soon Harry will inevitably be brought face to face with Black, an alleged supporter of the temporarily vanquished villain Voldemort. The events in the story's last act set the stage for the even darker plotlines of "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" and "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix." Cuaron, whose previous movies include both the sensual "Y Tu Mama Tambien" and the beguiling "A Little Princess," carefully modulates the moods in this material.
Although "Azkaban" never becomes an all-out horror film, it's full of startling moments and first-rate visual effects -- which, in stark contrast to the kind seen in "Van Helsing" and "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen," support the story instead of overwhelming it -- including a memorably spooky transformation, a couple of nerve-jangling encounters with the dementors, and a terrific scene in which a class of fledgling wizards confront and conquer the things they fear the most.
The director downplays a few of the events that were emphasized in the first two films, particularly another high-flying Quidditch match (which goes by so quickly that those unfamiliar with the books probably won't figure out what exactly is going on) and the competition for superiority between the four "houses" of Hogwarts.
The decision is a wise one, allowing Cuaron a little extra time to spend on some of the delightful new secondary characters in "Azkaban," such as David Thewlis' Professor Lupin, a sympathetic soul with a severely scratched-up face, and Emma Thompson's bug-eyed Professor Trelawney, a Stevie Nicks-type who sashays about in chiffon and headscarves, asking her baffled students, "Your aura is pulsing, dear: Are you in the beyond?"
Taking over the role of the Dumbledore originated by the late Richard Harris, Michael Gambon slips easily into the grand wizard's ornate robes. Although they are slightly less prominent than they were in the previous films, Robbie Coltrane (as the gentle giant Hagrid), Alan Rickman (as the suspicious Professor Snape) and Maggie Smith (as Professor McGonagall) are still enormously enjoyable to watch.
The gifted Rupert Grint and Emma Watson return again as Harry's steadfast friends Ron and Hermione, and, like Radcliffe, their characters have continued to mature and deepen with the onset of adolescence. No longer children, they're now cautiously traveling down the road to maturity and, even though they're armed with magic wands and spells, the journey is just as difficult and confusing as it is for Muggle youth.
But while Harry and his friends may be suffering growing pains, this fine fantasy shows the "Potter" series is in superb shape. To quote from the enchanted Marauder's Map Harry uses to navigate the hallways of Hogwarts, "mischief managed" -- marvelously.
As much of the civilized world now knows, the latest Harry Potter director is Alfonso Cuar�n, best known for the explicit teen sexual awakening movie Y Tu Mam� Tambi�n. As such, it may come as little surprise that his Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban begins with the teenage wizard-in-training hiding under the bedsheets, whacking his wand.
The wand in this case, of course, is literally a piece of wood containing a phoenix feather. But the symbolism remains, and one gets the sense that perhaps Cuar�n opens with the image as if to say, "Yeah, yeah, I know what you were thinking, now here's your joke and let's be done with it." Few, after all, remember Cuar�n's little-seen but well-reviewed A Little Princess, which makes for a far better analogy to Harry Potter, given its boarding-school setting and themes of parental loss and empowerment by fantasy.
Co-producer Chris Columbus, who directed the first two Potter films, seems to have taken it as his mandate to find a director as different from himself as possible who's still capable of working within the designated framework -- Cuar�n inherits most of the actors and sets originally selected by Columbus and his crew, though the new director has changed the geography of things a bit. Both the Whomping Willow and Hagrid's hut have relocated to a mountainside, and with the unfortunate passing of Richard Harris, original Singing Detective Michael Gambon gets to be the new Albus Dumbledore. At the risk of blaspheming against the dead, Gambon's actually an improvement, playing the wizard headmaster as a more deliberately cryptic character rather than an aging scatterbrain.
As the J.K. Rowling books get progressively darker, it's wise to jettison Columbus from the helm at this stage. Though he did perhaps his finest directorial work ever on The Sorcerer's Stone, The Chamber of Secrets saw an increasing amount of the director's trademark sentimentality start to creep in. Cuar�n's mandate appears to have been "Make it darker!" So, tonally and visually, more darkness is what we get -- some scenes look almost like frames from a silent film. In conjunction with regular big-screen Potter adapter Steven Kloves, Cuar�n has also taken more narrative liberties than Columbus did, and all of them are good, restructuring the film's chronology for increased dramatic impact; an added scene with Harry chasing an apparent phantom through pitch-black corridors at night is a standout, and conveys necessary plot information more effectively than Rowling managed. There are still a few loose ends that are better explained in the book (most notably the backstory of the magical map used by Harry), but there's only so much one can cram into two and a half hours without younger viewers walking out in impatience.
That is, unless they've already run screaming; this is by far the scariest of the Harry Potter films, and should not be viewed by little ones prone to nightmares. Harry runs away from home early on, is chased by an apparent werewolf, encounters talking shrunken heads (a particularly gruesome Cuar�n addition), and then finally makes it safely to Hogwarts only to discover that a bunch of soul-sucking zombies called "dementors" have been invited to take up residence around the school, and they might just kill any student who comes near them. They've been sent from the Azkaban Prison for magical criminals in search of a recent escapee, the titular prisoner Sirius Black (Gary Oldman, shamelessly and hilariously mugging), who's expected to wreak havoc upon Harry if he ever catches up to the lad.
Magically speaking, this is a bit like having the guards from Abu Ghraib assigned to baby-sit your kids, though the parents of the Hogwarts students appear to have curious priorities: A mythical animal inadvertently causing minor injury creates a huge controversy resulting in a death sentence, yet supernatural, homicidal, living-dead prison guards who inspire terror in all are somehow not a major cause for concern.
Right-wing nut cases who complain about Harry Potter being satanic may find some solace in the introduction of an anti-big-government theme, as we're introduced to Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge (Robert Hardy), a bureaucrat who apparently represents witches and wizards in the U.K. Parliament, all the while enforcing stupid decisions like the dementor thing. And let's not forget that the Harry Potter books and films are all about school choice, a popular issue among vehemently churchgoing folk. There's even some Christian-style forgiveness at a key moment, but that probably won't matter to the Pat Robertson crowd -- J.K. Rowling would have to publicly come out against evolution and in favor of George W. Bush for the religious right to shut their traps about the movie's alleged pagan worldview. (The Lord of the Rings and the Narnia books regularly get a pass because their authors were Christians. )
Since every English actor working today is required to do one of these films at some point, The Prisoner of Azkaban introduces Julie Christie as the Hogsmeade Innkeeper, Lenny Henry as a Jamaican-accented shrunken head, Dawn French as the Fat Lady, Emma Thompson as hippie-gypsy Professor Trelawney (she plays it too broadly, but that's a minor gripe), rodent-faced Timothy Spall in an amusingly appropriate role (to reveal here might spoil things), and David Thewlis as new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor Remus Lupin, whose name is a bit of a giveaway when it comes to his obligatory hidden secret (fans of his work in The Island of Dr. Moreau will be particularly amused). Poor Rik Mayall still hasn't made the final cut in his role as Peeves the poltergeist, and yet Warwick Davis gets to appear as yet another totally different little person -- his third such character in the series.
But there's still plenty of time for the old favorites. Robbie Coltrane is always dependable as the half-giant Hagrid, and Alan Rickman's brooding Snape is a joy once more, making even lines as simple as "Turn to page three hundred and ninety-four" drip with such overblown menace as to crack up the audience at the preview screening. As Harry's best friend Ron, Rupert Grint has finally had his voice break, but he's not a lot of use, unless you consider infinite utterances of the word "brilliant" to be useful. There are hints dropped to a future potential romance with Hermione (Emma Watson), which can only be because she needs someone helpless to take care of.
As for Harry himself (Daniel Radcliffe), let's just say it's a shame that Star Wars Episode III has wrapped principal photography, because Hayden Christensen could learn a lot from young Radcliffe's portrayal of adolescent angst meeting magical fury. Unfortunately, perennial rival Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton) gets short shrift this time, losing all his menace and becoming, to put it bluntly, a whiny little bitch. Then again, the bullying Lavinia in A Little Princess barely figured in that movie, either -- maybe Cuar�n just can't relate to such characters.
In the Harry Potter film series thus far, The Sorcerer's Stone remains the strongest, perhaps because the first look at any rich new world is almost always going to be more groundbreaking than its sequels. But The Prisoner of Azkaban is a worthy and stylistically different follow-up, where The Chamber of Secrets often felt like an unimaginative retread. Haven't read the next two books in the series yet, but here's hoping that they avoid the running clich of the Scooby-Doo scene that all three films rely on, in which the one character who isn't who you think he is gets found in some heretofore undiscovered room, where he proceeds to explain the entire plot so far to Harry and us. It was cool the first time because the character in question had a monster face growing out of the back of his head, but it's getting old as a narrative device. Blame Rowling, but Kloves and Cuar�n so deftly rearrange other parts of the story that it really stands out when they fall ever-so-slightly short.
With regard to the near-impossible task of making a Harry Potter film that captures all the magic and cleverness of its source material, "The Prisoner of Azkaban" succeeds more thoroughly than either of its predecessors. It is darker and funnier than "The Sorcerer's Stone" and "The Chamber of Secrets," and in nearly every way a better movie.
The difference, of course, is in the direction. Chris Columbus was never more than a serviceable director, offering average entertainment such as "Mrs. Doubtfire" and "Home Alone" before delivering his overly faithful adaptations of the first two Harry Potter books.
Now we have Alfonso Cuar�n, a genuinely talented filmmaker ("Y Tu Mama Tambien," "A Little Princess") with a creative eye and a fresh vision. Where Columbus was content to make films that told the stories from J.K. Rowling's novels without distinction, Cuar�n uses camera angles, sight gags, scary special effects and (above all) a lively pace to make "The Prisoner of Azkaban" every bit as good a MOVIE as it is a book adaptation. The other films felt like nothing more than companion pieces to the novels, illustrations to go along with the words; this one stands on its own.
Chew on this: The third book in the series is 100 pages longer than the first two, yet the third film is a good 20 minutes shorter -- and still, nothing significant is missing. What Cuar�n and screenwriter Steve Kloves (who adapted the other films, too, though apparently with more freedom) have done is streamline the story. Where a book can have events add up over the course of, say, two evenings before coming to a head, it makes more sense for a film to condense the action into one scene. "Azkaban" does this repeatedly, thus finally satisfying fans who want the same flavor and plot lines as the books, while not trying the patience of moviegoers who are perhaps not as rabid in their devotion to the novels and who simply want a solid, well-focused film.
Harry's (Daniel Radcliffe) third year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry finds him and his fellow students on edge because notorious murderer Sirius Black (Gary Oldman) has escaped from the inescapable Azkaban prison. Consequently, the Ministry of Magic has sent troops of Dementors -- cloaked, Reaper-like demons who suck the souls out of their captives -- to patrol the periphery of the school.
Sirius Black, it is said, was responsible for the death of Harry's parents and presumably wants to find Harry to finish off the Potters altogether. Harry, meanwhile, deals with the usual problems of a schoolboy: his broomstick breaks, Snape (Alan Rickman) is still on his case, and kind-hearted Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane) is in trouble because one of his odd creatures bit Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton). You know, kid stuff.
As his best friends Hermione (Emma Watson) and Ron (Rupert Grint) have some alone time on field trips to Hogsmeade -- where Harry can't go because his guardians wouldn't sign the permission slip -- he finds a confidante in Professor Lupin (David Thewlis), the new Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor who harbors a dark secret himself. Lupin helps Harry learn how to conjure a Patronus, a protective phantasm that can help him defend himself against the Dementors.
The first chunk of the film and the last chunk -- which involves the manipulation of time! -- are the best, whizzing with sly humor (the Whomping Willow makes occasional appearances) and marvelous special effects. Buckbeak the hippogriff -- part eagle, part horse -- is a wonder to behold, and the Dementors are hideously frightening. The thrill of the Knight Bus -- a high-speed wizard transport service that Muggles can't see -- is captured with a sort of mad energy, and aided by John Williams' whimsical score.
In the middle, things are not as buoyant. The books deliver the events of a single school year in linear fashion, without regard for the story having a clear beginning, middle and end. The films have not yet mastered the art of following that pattern without occasionally feeling like they're not GOING anywhere, and even Cuar�n is unable to avoid the trap.
The performances continue to be rich and, where suitable, personable. Gary Oldman and David Thewlis are welcome additions, and Emma Thompson is a hoot as Sybil Trelawney, the addle-pated professor of divination. (I submit that even if she were to play a mass murderer, Emma Thompson would still be unbelievably appealing and likable in the role.)
Only the most hardline fans of the books will object to the minor customizations made for the film. All else will praise its ingenuity, spirit and wicked sense of humor.