the best entry in a strong series

Rating: 10/10 (10 June 2004)

"Prisoner of Azkaban" is the best Harry Potter movie so far - and I'm not at all embarrassed to admit that I enjoyed the first two films as well. Critics of this series puzzle me; the books are good potboilers, and so are the movies, so what's to complain about? The casting and production design in each film has been pretty much perfect. Certainly, the Potter films are closer in "look" and tone to the books' vision than the mysteriously acclaimed Lord of the Rings movies, which drain much of the whimsy out of Middle Earth and turn the whole saga into an Orc-hewing action fest.
The only thing that was missing from the first two Potter films was an arty director, and lo and behold, they got Alfonso Cuaron to replace Chris Columbus for Azkaban. But I certainly didn't hate Columbus' directing, and arguably his straightforward style was well suited to the material, since the early books were not particularly atmospheric. Only with Azkaban did the Potter books begin to truly emphasize elements of mood, horror, and danger, and so the movies shift in tone at exactly the same point as the source material. This was the right time to bring Cuaron on board.
Defenses of Columbus aside, Cuaron inarguably takes him to school here by managing to tell a coherent story and getting fancy with his camerawork at the same time (Columbus had trouble with the latter trick).
The special effects get better every time, with Buckbeak the Hippogriff making the biggest impression here. It's funny how much they can make you care about some CGI creature! The Dementors are awesome, swooping Reaper-like creatures who add a welcome stab of Gothic horror to the proceedings. Every segment that features the Dementors is wonderfully suspenseful - much more suspenseful, in fact, than the flat attack scenes involving the Wraiths in Lord of the Rings. It's amazing what a director can achieve when he's got a sense of good pacing and actually holds his shots...
Casting is great again, with Emma Thompson giving a memorably loopy performance as the seer and David Thewlis making a very charismatic Lupin. The Harry/Lupin scenes are in fact my favorite part, and the character development in this film clearly eclipses what we've seen before, particularly in the more action-oriented Chamber of Secrets. As for Michael Gambon - well, he rocks. I'm not on board with comments that he's inferior to Richard Harris. For goodness' sake, Harris was almost impossible to hear in the second film! Gambon is louder, more colorful, and more brash, and that's good. Shame his role is quite truncated, but I'm looking forward to seeing more of him in the next film. Ditto Gary Oldman, who seems to be having fun playing a ridiculously OTT Sirius Black.
I'm glad to see that the movie's early box office receipts are so strong - and people thought the era of Harry Potter was over! I can hardly wait for the fourth film, which is in Mike "Donnie Brasco" Newell's capable hands.