MPAA Rating: PG
Original Review Date: July 21, 2004
Reviewed by: Erin, Movie Muse
In a Nutshell: Somewhat disappointing to this lover of the book,
particularly as this is my favorite book in the series. Worth
seeing, I guess, but not as good of a movie (story-wise) as the
second one.
Quick Plot: Sirius Black has escaped from Azkaban prison with
one thought on his mind: kill Harry Potter.
In Detail: I know, I am dreadfully late with this review, but I
figure anyone who really wanted to see it would have seen it
anyway, and anyone who wasn't sure probably wouldn't have been
persuaded to see it based on my rather poor review of the film,
so in the long run, it probably didn't make any difference,
unless you were dying of curiosity regarding my opinion of the
film. :p You got all that? LOL Anyway, as I mentioned above,
I found the film, overall, to be disappointing. Visually, I
liked the film better, and the acting itself was better (hey,
the kids are getting older and they have more experience now; I
*hope* they're getting better). But with all of the edits they
had to/chose to make to the story itself, it seemed to fall a
bit flat. This perception is not helped by the fact that this
is far and away my favorite *book* in the series, so it had a
lot to live up to for me to be happy. However, given that DH (a
non-reader) was even a little confused after seeing the film and
I had to explain several things (including the tell-tale
question "so *what* was up with those Dementor things?"), this
tells me that the filmmakers did not succeed in their objectives
of relaying the story well, at all. (For heaven's sake! You
should know all about the Dementors by the end of that book, I
mean movie.) They also took out a few points that I feel were
totally key and that made the story "magical." The book has a
lot of thinking/internal type elements, so I realize it was
difficult to translate to the screen. Not a bad movie, but not
as great as it could have/should have been.
Will I Buy It? Seeing as we already have the first two, I'm
leaning towards yes, but if the films don't start improving from
this point (and I find it hard to believe they can, since they
intend to chop down the massive book 4 into a single 2 hour
film), I will find it difficult to continue to purchase them.
That is, of course, until I decide that my child needs a new
film to watch, because I'm tired of seeing the same ones over
and over and over and.... :)
