Surely You Can't Be Sirius

Year: 2004

Director: Alfonso Cuarón

Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint

Run Time: 2 hours 22 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is the point where the series begins to settle in for the long haul. It’s still self-contained and epic-lite, not yet reaching the dark depths of the following entries, but the series first finds its personality in the chapters of this, the third book.

Prisoner of Azkaban, the third film in the franchise, is directed by Alfonso Cuarón, the man behind Gravity, my second favorite film of 2013 and one of the most perfect sci-fi thrillers ever created. Needles to say, he is a deeply idiosyncratic director capable of tremendously great things. Azkaban is not one of them, but it’s a damn sight better than the profoundly impersonal Chris Columbus’ Sorcerer’s Stone and Chamber of Secrets, which feel like dusty museum pieces. Azkaban may have inherited many of their laws, but at the very least it crackles with much-needed life.

And great ties.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, in case you have been buried in soft peat for the past 18 years out of reach of a library, tells the story of thirteen-year-old wizard Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe). When he returns to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for his third year, he discovers that a violent escapee from the wizard prison Azkaban – Sirius Black (Gary Oldman) – has him in his sights. As a result, the school is being guarded by the dementors, a race of hooded, soul-sucking creatures that feed on happy memories and who affect Harry tremendously thanks to the atrocities in his past.

To help defend himself from the dementors, Harry takes extra lessons with the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Lupin (David Thewlis), with whom he develops and instant rapport. As the year wears on, Harry – along with his best friends Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson), must battle the dementors, discover the truth about Sirius Black, and fight to save the life of Buckbeak the hippogriff – a favored companion of their friend Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane) – after it nearly gores their rival Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton) for being a douche with hair like a cantaloupe dropped from a skyscraper.

The mid-2000's were a hard time to be a teenager.

The jump in quality between Columbus and Cuarón is immediately apparent from the opening scene – which is the best in the series thus far - and continues until the very end, enveloping the film in a warm, loving embrace. The difference in the aesthetic and production design is legitimately staggering. 

The magical world of Hogwarts dusts itself off to become a nuanced, living, breathing organism that acts as an additional, fully fleshed out character. Included in the castle’s thorough redesign is a clock tower, a beautiful spindly bridge that could only be held up by magic, and a Stonehenge-like structure that connects the passage from the castle to the grounds. With these additions, Hogwarts becomes more open and fluid (not to mention unbelievably pretty), lending it a sense of unified geography instead of the previous films’ disjointed Rolodex of medieval-looking university broom cupboards.

The costume design is also similarly unstifled. Variations are provided in the black Hogwarts uniforms and the film introduces street clothes to the characters’ wardrobe, allowing them to switch up the color scheme and spruce up the one-note drabness of the previous, more book-reliant entries.

On top of all of this, Cuarón introduces some stylistic fillips that do wonders fleshing out the vast world around the miniscule scope of Harry’s school adventures with his friends. The film’s transitions are effortless, showing the castle in bustling action (my personal favorite touch being the use of the Whomping Willow to depict the passage of the seasons), allowing the film to sprint along at a spritely pace.

It’s a real breath of fresh air following the interminable Chamber of Secrets.

I could go on and on about how the film displays increased facility with framing, containing more singularly striking images than the other two films combined, or how the inclusion of a  “toil and trouble” musical motif introduces a cheerily baroque, almost medieval tone, but I must remember that my esteem for Azkaban is largely hyperinflated in comparison to its immediate predecessors. As a matter of fact, Azkaban has a tendency to get bogged down by almost the exact same problems, though they are fewer in number.

First and foremost, the plot, while more limber and fast-paced thanks to some well-executed excision, is a little too thin on the ground, cutting out important details. And I don’t mean “wah, wah, they cut out the reveal that Crookshanks is part kneazle, I’m a nerd, kick me.” I mean, “The third act is based almost entirely on a series of revelations that hinge upon information we weren’t actually given.” Yes, it’s true that most of the modern world has read the Harry Potter books. But that’s no excuse to lazily leave half your character moments scattered on the cutting room floor like they’re so many intern corpses.

Prisoner of Azkaban is likewise weighed down by an uncommonly shaggy cast. The child actors neither match their highest highs nor their lowest lows, trapped in an unremarkable limbo, but the adult cast buries its shiniest gems too deep into the third act. Beginning with Mark Williams’ unfocused turn as Arthur Weasley, the torch of mediocrity is carried beyond the prologue by David Thewlis’ stop-and-go performance. Their acting is about as patchy as their robes. In addition, Michael Gambon (replacing the late Richard Harris as Headmaster Dumbledore) has yet to settle into the ethereal otherness of the role, and Potter mainstays Maggie Smith and Alan Rickman are unceremoniously stacked in a disused corner.

The newcomer trio of Emma Thompson (as the flighty Divination professor Sibyl Trelawny), Gary Oldman (as the shattered, hollow Sirius Black), and Timothy Spall (as the sniveling, smarmy Peter Pettigrew) are all unforgivably incredible, but their best work comes after a Lord of the Rings-length slog through bare adequacy. Thanks to the hard-earned efforts of a solid cast at their most mediocre, the film’s emotional beats feel cold and perfunctory.

Like a Goosebumps book in the freezer.

The film slightly makes up for these deficits with an omnipresent puckish sense of humor. But sometimes it slips too far into kiddie territory, most notably with a Jamaican shrunken head that talks, which will make you want to fill your ears with cement.

The last bastion of quality in Prisoner of Azkaban is the special effects, which are without qualification the best of the series up to this point. Maybe the extra year gap between 2002’s Chamber of Secrets and Azkaban allowed CGI technology to catch up with the series’ ambition, or maybe the FX crew simply cared more. Who knows. 

They grew a smidge too self-indulgent when they made the decision to digitally animate a dog instead of doing the blisteringly easy thing and picking one up from the pound, but the rendering of the creatures – Buckbeak in particular – is superb, largely free of the alienating side-effect of looking like the monsters are occupying some dimension that’s next door to ours. They even figured out how to make Hagrid work, allowing him to share frame with other actors, rather than sit up all on his lonesome in claustrophobic low angle close-up shots.

The only rough patch is the (SPOILERS – oh, who am I kidding) werewolf, but that’s more the fault of a goofy design than shoddy animation.

Am I a man, or am I a muppet?

So there you have it. Prisoner of Azkaban is unmistakably the best early Harry Potter movie, but it’s still an early Harry Potter movie. There’s a lot more to chew on in a much more manageable time frame, recommending this film far more than the others in the original three, more child-oriented Potters. It’s not Cuarón’s best work, but it’s still Cuaróns work, and that counts for a lot.

TL;DR: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is emotionally thin but aesthetically ebullient.
Rating: 7/10
Word Count: 1357
Reviews In This Series
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Columbus, 2001)
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Columbus, 2002)
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Cuarón, 2004)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Newell, 2005)
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Yates, 2007)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Yates, 2009)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (Yates, 2010)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (Yates, 2011)

Looking For The Magic

Year: 2001

Director: Chris Columbus

Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson

Run Time: 2 hours 32 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG

As both a self-respecting movie blogger and a human born in the mid-90's, there has been a glaringly egregious gap in my review history: the largest cultural phenomenon of the millennium, the Harry Potter franchise. Now, I hadn't rewatched any of these films or reread any of the books since the release of the final entry in the franchise in 2011, so it is from a relatively fresh, newly adult perspective that I approach these films, making this marathon - I hope - all the more interesting.

I will always carry a deep and abiding love for Harry Potter in my heart. How could I not? His presence has defined my entire living memory. But I'm going to attempt to come at these films on their own terms, separate from my inner child's feelings on the matter. And let me tell you, nothing prepares you for the cold, hard truth behind beloved childhood films like a double dose of Chris Columbus.

It's really not fair to subject children to this kind of torment.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, in case you are a baby who has not yet learned to read, is about one Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe), an eleven-year-old boy in the care of his despicable aunt and uncle, who discovers that he is a wizard and is summarily carted off to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardy. There he learns that he is the only known person to have survived an attack by the dark wizard Lord Voldemort (played for the time being and without distinction by Richard Bremmer), who killed his parents when he was a baby.

During his first year at Hogwarts, Harry befriends Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint), a boy from a low income wizarding family, and Hermione Granger (Emma Watson), a somewhat bossy girl who excels at schoolwork. In between their lessons, they discover that Hogwarts is currently the hiding place of the philosopher's sorcerer's stone, a legendary MacGuffin that creates the Elixir of Life and which Voldemort desperately wants. They suspect that their wicked potions professor Snape (Alan Rickman) is plotting to nick the stone from the school, right under the nose of the wise and powerful headmaster Albus Dumbledore (Richard Harris).

Also, why did publishers think that American brains would melt upon seeing the word "philosopher"? That's not an unheard of term over here. It's not like pretentious undergraduates are tramping around signing up for sorcery majors. We get it, guys. And actually, Nicolas Flamel was an alchemist, so screw all y'all.

The Sorcerer's Stone is different from the book. That is fine. I don't mind my cinema being different from literature. They're two different mediums for a reason. I'm just telling you all this so when I complain, it won't feel like useless nerd rage.

While the film cuts large swaths away from the book's plot left and right, it ironically completely fails to trim the fat. The end result is a story that zooms from beat to beat with a machine gun clatter, often dawdling pointlessly for twelve seconds at a time on unjustifiable plot points like the birth of Norbert the dragon (whereupon he is immediately shipped offscreen and hardly mentioned again), a transfiguration lesson (which is merely an excuse to repeat an effect we've already seen before), and the introduction of the Hogwarts ghosts (perhaps the most shameless and irritating fan pandering, because they instantly vanish from the film and they have the gall to not even include Peeves).

In their blind fury to slam every possible moment from the book into the audience's eyes, Columbus and screenwriter Steve Kloves forget that they're supposedly making a self-contained narrative film. Imagine, if you will, that a movie is an intricate wedding cake, holding itself elegantly in delicious harmony. The Sorcerer's Stone is more like a pile of jagged fondant shrapnel with a dozen mismatched figurines jammed in at odd angles.

Metaphors are hard. Segues are harder.

There is some really wonderful stuff in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I'll close with that, so I leave you all with the feeling that maybe I'm not a grouchy old codger. For the time being, let's continue complaining.

There is a moment, and it is very early in the film, where the technical side of things goes completely off the deep end. It does not stay here for long, but the effect lingers for a great deal of time as it wades back to more navigable waters. I speak of the "cabin in the sea" scene, in which, for no apparent reason, the 180 degree rule as well as all laws of continuity editing and location geography are shot in the head and dumped into shallow graves. The camera goes haywire, jumping back and forth like a deranged chipmunk and never adequately displaying the scene to any degree.

Aside from that brief patch of gibbering insanity, the film is otherwise technically sound (including some early 2000's CGI that comes off a bit blocky, but is hardly distracting and it's still better than Jupiter Ascending), though it does tend to feel a little stuffy and stagebound, lacking the expansive open-world feel of the later sequels.

Masterpiece Potter, if you will.

Here's where my mood begins to improve. The performances, largely culled from the highest grade talent available across Britain, are remarkably superb for a children's film. Alan Rickman and Maggie Smith are the perfect choices for their respective characters, taking the film seriously and bestowing their roles with a profound sense of gravity. Richard Harris with his wheezy otherworldliness, Robbie Coltrane with his rugged good cheer, and Warwick Davis with his being Warwick Davis all round out the adult cast quite nicely.

The only liability in the acting is the children, which is naturally to be expected. Radcliffe does a fine job, though he utterly fails to convince when he is supposed to be feeling pain in his scar. Intimate understanding of pain like that doesn't happen until puberty. And Rupert Grint has some natural comedic talent, though he doesn't get so many opportunities to show it off this time around. Emma Watson is the weakest link thus far, but her overly-recited lines don't contradict her character so it's not distracting in any way.

All in all, things could be a lot worse on the kids' end and it's almost impossible to be better on the adults' end (*cough cough Michael Gambon cough*).

Yay! I was mostly nice for two whole paragraphs!

Alright, now that that's out of our systems, it's time for the effusive fan praise. First off, John Williams' score and especially the iconic "Hedwig's Theme" is just superb, capturing the magic and wonder of this new world with a soaring heart. It's not so overdone as some of his more recent scores, utilizing a minimalist melody and orchestration to capture an unforgettable whimsical tone. Its use in the film isn't always perfect, and it's overplayed at some points making some minor scenes self-consciously epic-sounding (Harry's going to the broom cupboard, not to war), but the score itself is an undeniable masterwork.

The other unimpeachable aspect of the film is its production design. The layout of Hogwarts castle has not yet reached its zenith, but the interiors are uniformly cluttered, lived-in, and supernaturally in tune with the mystery and majesty of the wizarding world. 

It is not Harry Potter in its best form, but it lays a solid groundwork for the truly wonderful things to follow. Really, it's a fine film to begin a franchise with. But only (and here's the clinches), only if you've already read the book. You need that handicap in order to decipher the incomprehensible mass of plot that the film vomits up in its middle half. But other than that, hey, good job.

TL;DR: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is a decent enough beginning to the franchise, but leaves the door wide open for future improvement.

Rating: 6/10
Word Count: 1346
Reviews In This Series
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Columbus, 2001)
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Columbus, 2002)
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Cuarón, 2004)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Newell, 2005)
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Yates, 2007)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Yates, 2009)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (Yates, 2010)

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (Yates, 2011)