Like the Curate's Egg - Good in Parts

Rating: 5/10 (2 June 2004)

In my view "The Prisoner of Azkaban" is J K Rowling's best work.
From what I had read, I expected that Alfonso Cuaron would scrap the "Hollywood" style and his film would reflect the darker nature of this story.
He certainly did achieve that. The film was beautifully filmed and was genuinely eerie in places. His animation of the Hippogriff was fantastic - most believable.
Of his actors - David Thewlis as Lupin was not as I pictured the character but did an admirable job. Gary Oldman as Sirius however was woefully under-used. Michael Gambon was an excellent replacement Dumbledore and all three central characters turned in fine performances.
Nevertheless I left the cinema feeling disappointed. I had a feeling that the POA should have been a great film - but wasn't!! If I hadn't read the book, I think a number of scenes would have completely baffled me.
My prime objection was that I felt I had just been watching a 4 hour film in Fast-forward mode.
Every scene was pared to the bone and over in 90 seconds or less. With the exception of Harry, Hermione, Ron and Lupin all other characters were reduced to mere 3 line cameos.
Also what happened to the continuity? - "The Leaky Cauldron", is now presided over by "Igor the Truly Terrible" and has been transported next to a railway terminus. A landslide has caused Hagrid's cottage to end up at the bottom of a hill. Lakes appeared to expand and contract from scene to scene.
Because of Cuaron's mad rush to produce a shorter film from a much longer book, many essential plot items disappeared.
Did I miss an explanation of the Marauders Mapmaker's names? That surely was essential to the story. Harry needs to know this to believe his father saved him by using a Stag Patronus. Another key element of the book was Hermione's need to obtain the Time Turner so she should get to all her lessons. The film barely touched on Hermione's impossible school timetable.
Obviously a scriptwriter's job must be to condense - but I felt the essential feel of the book was lost somewhere in the translation. With this in mind, I am certainly not looking forward to seeing any slimmed-down version of the next couple of books. I might just give their films a miss.
I hope that the distributors will follow the LOTR example and the fully-extended 4 hour version of this film will shortly be available on DVD.
Score 5/10