Good but disappointing

Rating: 5/10 (7 June 2004)

I have read all 5 Harry Potter books that are out at the time and so far, number 3 is my favorite. You can imagine my excitement in wanting to see this movie. The first one was okay and the second one was much better. Learning a new director was behind this one thrilled me even more, thinking 'Excellent, it'll appear new and be the best movie too'. Wrong. Very wrong. *May contain Spoilers after here* Okay, what enraged me the most was the sudden handgrabbing with Hermione and Ron. That was never even thought of in the book because they fought through almost the entire thing! How dare the stupid movie makers/writers even try to give people that haven't read the book that idea! Another quality I disliked was that they rarely showed teachers from previous movies, it showed not one Charms, Transfiguration, or Potions class. Find that alittle odd? You see Professor McGonagal and Dumbledore maybe three times throughout the film. Next, I must be angry with the wardrobers! Why were they in normal clothing almost throughout the entire thing! We even saw before that outside of classes they still had to wear uniforms! Another thing is the explanation of things. The pace of this movie was too fast and they never explained that Moony was Remus Lupin, Wormtail was Peter Pettigrew, Padfoot was Sirius Black, and Prongs was James Potter. They also didn't explain how Sirius escaped from Azkaban. Other various things were left out. The ending, which usually has Harry leaving the train was left out completely(I mean, all the books ended that way, the movie should've too). Instead we get a shot of Harry trying out his Firebolt...
Overall, this movie was worse than the first two but, thankfully, the idiot director will not be returning for the fourth, they've gotten someone else.
There were some good things in the movie but not enough to save it overall. Buckbeak was cute and real looking which gave the film a bonus of noncrappy special effects. The dementors were awesome even though I never pictured them flying but that made it scarier. As usual, the use of magic was good and the acting improved.
I give the film a 6 out of 10.