Not Bad, But Not Brilliant

Rating: Null/10 (4 December 2004)

***Spoilers*** and References to The Goblet of Fire. Were to start, it's hard to pinpoint were the movie went wrong because there was so much great material to work with. The Prisoner of Azkaban had many things going for it post production. A great actor lineup, two previously successful installments and of course high anticipation of its release. Nevertheless, it was hard to watch. The movie started of quite strongly, and then the quality took a nose dive only to recover at the end. Although that means that more than half of the movie was good it still leaves a bitter taste in my mouth since a little editing could have fixed this problem. A lot of people felt that the movie was too dark, well the book was dark. I think the underlying problem was certain parts were just poorly done and other parts were meant to compensate for them. POA starts out quite solid, Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) is gutting out another summer with the Dursley's and is provoked by his uncle's sister into using magic. At this time in the movie, I was getting over the initial shock of lack of Christopher Columbus while resisting the new hand held camera techniques applied by Alfonso Cuarón.
The Knight Bus and Leaky Cauldron scenes were difficult to swallow and could have been so much better without the introduction of too many shady characters. Cornelius Fudge who supposedly looses it in the fourth book comes of rather nutty and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley who weren't supposed to ever be out of their robes were kind of strange. The dialogue between Mr. Weasley and Harry amidst the pillars was distracting and felt rushed. By the time we get into the swing of things I was sort of cynical about the new director, Alfonso Cuarón who has already proved himself in The Little Princess.
The attack on The Hogwart's Express and the arrival at Hogwarts were nicely executed and the choir and floating candles added a nice touch. This was probably the best scene in the movie. I felt that the Dumbledore replacement was actually better but were POA missed out and COS didn't was Ron's comic relief which was scarce to none in this movie. Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) actually seemed depressed! Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton) was hardly threatening and seemed a tad out of character. Cuarón used the Womping Willow to mark the change of season and definitely gave Hogwarts a more realistic opposed to whimsical look than the first two. Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) started of strong and continued with a solid performance throughout the movie. Good performance by most of the cast and The Dementors were by far the best CGI in the movie and also how I pictured them as described in the book. Not bad but not brilliant.