A Disappointment to Die-hards

Rating: Null/10 (21 June 2004)

Spoilers within.
What can I say? I've only seen this film once, so I'll have to see it as least once more to fully judge it, but so far, it's been a disappointment.
I'm well aware of the difficulties of converting a novel to film, but the mistakes made in this movie were novice, and often made no sense. Why on earth is it that a book which is longer than the first two has a shorter film? Logically, one would expect it to be somewhat longer, if not greatly.
Instead, PoA is the shortest film, and it's obvious by the amount of information that is left out and jumbled up. Things are rarely given time to develop, and information is instead suddenly given with no apparent reason, making it awkward for the actors.
Most surprisingly, things are often changed for absolutely no reason. For example, the scene in the book in which Harry, Ron, and Hermione overhear a discussion about Sirius Black and James Potter in the Three Broomsticks is now changed to Harry sneaking in with his invisibility cloak - Ron and Hermione are left outside, because they're "underage." The information given in this scene is incredibly jumbled, and I found it difficult to understand. For a person who has never read the book, it is likely even more confusing.
The relationship between Black, Lupin, Peter Pettigrew, and James Potter is never really explained, and nor is any explanation of their abilities as animagi given. Worst of all, no explanation is given for the significance of Harry's stag Patronus.
Quidditch is given little air-time in this movie - the one movie in which it should have been given the most. Oliver Wood fails to appear in his last year at Hogwarts, and the only match seen is the one in which Harry is attacked, not when they win the Quidditch cup. Joining Oliver Wood on the missing list is Cederic Diggory and Cho Chung, both of whom become important characters later.
Most disappointing is the scene in the Shrieking Shack. The reason why they're in the Shrieking Shack is never given. The scene in the Shrieking Shack was the perfect moment for the confusing information from the rest of the movie to be sorted out, with Sirius and Lupin cooly explaining themselves. Instead, the entire scene consists of some yelling, wand waving, and Harry attacking Snape for no apparent reason.
The acting in this film is fine - albeit somewhat awkward with all of the information the actors are expected to drop in a random conversation. However, for the first time, I'm disappointed with the choice of actor for a character. While Emma Thompson plays Sybil Trelawney perfectly, David Thewlis disappointed me as Remus Lupin. I found he looked nothing like I pictured him, and his acting was too forceful for the constantly quiet-and-ill Lupin. Also disappointing is the presence of Snape and McGonagall in this film - or lackthereof. Both almost completely fail to appear.
While this film constantly has a confusing element within it, due to poor scriptwriting, even more confusing is how the Hogwarts grounds changed from their appearance in the first two films to the hilly mountains they are in this one. Did Hogarts suddenly change location without notifying the rest of us?
Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban isn't a BAD movie, but it's not the greatest either. By far the worst of the three Harry Potter books now on film, PoA is hurt by the director's attempt to cram the longest of the books so far into the shortest of films. It would have done better to have instead made PoA an incredibly long film - the number of children who went to Titanic proves that youth doesn't mean you can't withstand a long film.
Let's just hope that the Goblet of Fire is put into two films, just for accuracies sake.