All fluff and no substance, so don't expect too much.

Rating: 1/10 (5 June 2004)

My overwhelming reaction to the movie was, "Is the movie over yet???"
How much you'll like the movie will all depend on what you're looking for. If you're the kind of person who likes lots of cute special effects, then you'll love the movie. If you're the type who wishes the novel had been followed more closely (like me), you're going to hate it.
I honestly think Cuaron worked too hard on the visual effects of the move, which were breathtaking, and not enough on the plot and scene continuation and the actors. There were many times when a scene was simply too intense and seemed to highlight all of their worst acting skills. I think Cuaron expected way too much out of the young actors and did not accordingly adjust for their shortcomings. The result: lame scenes where the lines fall completely flat and the actors seem like they're reading their lines, or even worse: overacting.
In my opinion, The Prisoner of Azkaban was the best novel in the series, and the movie should have been more faithful to the book. I understand that it's difficult to adapt a book to the screen and that many things have to be deleted, but they did much more than simply trim the story short. They changed the dialogue and added things that never happened in the book. Also, there's a tribute to Cuaron's Y Tu Mama Tambien, which I found completely inappropriate for a movie like this.
Cuaron says the movie's theme is the fact that the children are growing up, but I don't think that it was even conveyed all that well. If a person hadn't read the book, I don't think they would have really understood what was going on at all. The continuation from scene to scene is too disconnected to really showcase any theme or story properly. All I can say is, bring the old director back!