Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azkaban: Movie

*** SPOILER WARNING IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN HARRY POTTER & THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN OR DON”T WANT TO LEARN PLOT DETAILS DON’T READ PAST HERE ****

I like The Harry Potter book series. No I’m not one of those magic freaks who lurks in his basement trying to conjure spells on unsuspecting muggles and believes they will REALLY WORK OK? I like fantasy, I like escapism, plain and simple I think it’s a good idea to leave the world of reality and delve into a good book or movie for a few hours every once in a while.

This movie is much darker than both The Sorcerer’s Stone and The Chamber of Secrets, and has a completely different tone, and pace about it. While the first two movies seem to have that sense of discovery about the world of magic where Harry lives, you don’t ever seem to get more than knee deep. This movie however you are pretty completely immersed in the whole world of magic. I don’t know if this was your first movie from the series if it would make any sense. In fact one of my biggest problems with this movie is the amount of background knowledge you need to understand it. While the book does a good job of explaining how Hermione is able to be in two places and travel through time, the movie glosses over it giving only the briefest description. My second problem with the movie is it pace. Once Harry gets to the Leaky Cauldron the movie gets up to speed and doesn’t ever let up. Blink or get up to get popcorn or bathroom and you’ll miss something. Lastly it seems someone cast a spell of forgetfulness on the continuity department. In the first two movies Hogwarts was flat. Haggrid lived at the edge of the forbidden across a flat stretch of land. In this movie he lives down in a gully, WTF? There’s also a scene where Harry has a talk with professor Lupin in bridge over a river, again something that wasn’t present in the first two movies. I’ve heard the explanations that Hogwarts is a magical place and thing are always changing “magically“, well sorry ain’t buying it.

Now for the biggest ommision, the whole reason Sirus Black broke out of Azkaban? He saw the Weasly’s on the cover of the Daily Phrophet, and recognized Scabbers as Peter Pettigrew the man who betrayed Harry’s parent to Lord Voldemort.

Now don’t misinterpret this as a vote against the movie. I liked it, I really did, there were just a few nit-picky things I didn’t like, but I definitely felt I got my moneys worth. If you’re interested read my post on the Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azkaban: Soundtrack.

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