One movie, hold the sensibility, please.

Rating: 3/10 (17 December 2004)

Let me start by saying that the novel 'Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban' by J.K. Rowling is great, one of the best of the series, and I say this because of the way everything spins together and then there's the whole Scabbers/Pittegrew twist. But for the movie series, I'd have to say that the third installment is the worst of the bunch.
It started out OK, the blowing-up-of-the-aunt part was pretty funny, and the Jamacian shrunken head was pretty cool. The first thing that made me think poorly of this movie was the fact that they BUTCHERED it. Just so that they can fit it in under two and a half hours, they decided to just go along like Lance Armstrong on speed. There are so many parts that were in the novel and left out in the movie.
I think that I first started to get irritated was during the Shrieking Shack scene (with Black and Lupin and Pettigrew). That scene in the novel is crucial to the plot because they explain everything in detail. But in this movie, they cut the scene to seven minutes, which left the following sequence of events: Harry tackles Black, Lupin arrives, Snape arrives, Snape gets knocked cold, Lupin reveals Pittegrew. The next thing I know, they're outside the tree again! The only thing they explained was, "Scabbers is Peter Pittegrew, and HE'S the one that killed Harry's parents." They don't explain the Wormtail/Moody/Padfoot/Prongs deal. In fact, the only reference that you get that Harry's dad palled around with Lupin and Black was when Harry said, "My dad wouldn't want his two best friends to become killers." And it's so subtle that I almost missed it.
There's more, but I'm pressed for space so I'll skip to the end: all of a sudden, the forgotten Firebolt now weaves its way into the movie. I think it ended up in the end because during the final days of shooting, the director peeked into the novels and said, "Oh, crud, Harry flies again and his broom is smashed to bits." The Firebolt was a last-minute shot and lasted under a minute. Not gonna win any awards there. And the last shot of the movie was Harry on the broom screaming' his brains out in a cheesy let's-all-jump-and-freeze-the-frame-to-end-the-movie-shot. No.
The only reason that this movie got the three points is because it had some good special effects and CGI (I loved the tree whacking the dove though). In short, if you want to see what Harry's doing, read the book.