A darker and better Harry Potter film; As good as Azkaban

Rating: 9/10 (21 September 2008)

Year 4 turned into movie is more satisfying than Chris Columbus's version of year 1 and 2. Prisoner of Azkaban, year 3 is where the story gets darker and more realistic. Prisoner of Azkaban had a ground hog day touch to it. I found that Harry Potter has stopped being a kiddy adventure from year 3 onwards in the sense that it has got more adultish and realistic. This is due to the fact that the characters are growing up allowing them for more mature and logical actions . Chris Columbus made the 1 and 2 movies very cheerful in tone, bright and just apt for the kiddies. The story at that time (year1 and 2) had the gang as little kiddies (which is what they were back then). Azkaban changed the trend. And in here Mike Newell (from Four Weddings and a funeral fame) creates a realistic movie in so far as the stunts and violence goes. Harry suffers bruises, people die ,and real death looms. This in part also because the story is writtent that way and also because the director chooses to emphasize that the movie and adventure is entering a darker tone. The cinematographys uses a dark charcoalish shade informing us of the impeding doom to come. The cinematography is as Gothic, operatic and grand in scale as Azkaban was. The Yule ball is a nice interlude from the tri-wizard tournament and is reminiscent of high school proms. Lovely book and a lovely movie. The complaint that movie is not true to the book is utterly stupid as you cannot faithfully translate a 700 odd page book into a movie. So you compress, and these guys have got it right. They compressed the right bits. At the end the 700 pg book has to work as a piece of film seen in over 2.5 hrs. And it works just right.