The best of the series so far...truly an 'atmospheric' film...

Rating: 10/10 (12 July 2009)

If Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was the true coming of age story for both Harry and for the series in general, then Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is the spiritual coming of age for the series; something which the film adaptation emphasizes subtly but brilliantly. The story itself is a departure from the previous two books; both Sorceror's Stone and Chamber of Secrets were all Harry and his friends exploring all the wonders of the wizarding world, specifically Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. True, there WERE villains to fight and challenges to overcome and danger, but basically, for all intents and purposes, the first two books are very well-written and elaborate children's fantasy books. Prisoner of Azkaban is different; there is a constant atmosphere of depression, of darkness and evil lingering in the air. Harry is no longer a small innocent child opened up to a world of wonder; he is instead a young teenager filled with emotion, at one point prepared to kill a man he is convinced was responsible for his parents death. Such fantastic elements and trappings as a flying car, a three-headed dog or a giant chessboard are traded in for werewolves and Dementors, the latter personifying the atmosphere of evil and darkness lurking over Hogwarts and over Harry in particular. If the book is a departure from its predecessors, the film is doubly so, for it deviates from the two previous Potter films directed by Columbus both in plot as well as in overall direction (not surprising since we have a new director at the helm, Alfonso Curaro). There is a marked stylistic difference from the previous films-Hogwarts is no longer a wonderland of magic and fantasy, it is a dark ancient castle bubbling with mysterious and invisible forces, some of them evil...danger may well lurk in its every shadow! This transformation is not just something you see, you feel it, quite literally! Add on to this the fact that Harry is the prime target of an escaped convict believed to be a vicious mass murderer, and that he is dogged by omens of death (the Grimm) everywhere he goes, not to mention being particularly susceptible to the despair spread by the Dementors and you get the idea of the atmosphere that is being skillfully and subtly crafted here. And yet, as Dumbledore rightly says early on in the film, 'Happiness can be found even in the darkest of places'. For it is in this films that Harry first truly finds a mentor (he and Dumbledore have barely shared any screen time at this point); in Remus Lupin, his new Defence Against the Dark teacher, who teaches him to combat his despair both literally by teaching him a spell to repel the Dementors, and figuratively by offering him moral support throughout the film. One of the few shortcomings about this film was that a lot of the expository dialogs from the book were left out, presumably to maintain a fast pace, in stark contrast to the previous films which were almost word to word adaptations in most regards; while these omissions do not ordinarily detract from the story in any way, die-hard fans may find their absence disquieting The performances are spot on, as expected in any Potter film, though Lupin comes across as being more confident and assertive than in the book (a small liberty) and Draco Malfoy seems reduced almost to comic relief. But overall, my review is an appreciation of the film as a whole. This is definitely the best film in the series too date...it clearly surpasses its otherwise excellent predecessors, and none of its successors have succeeded in coming close to matching it; though Half-Blood Prince may well be the one that beats it when it releases later this week.