Takes Columbus' mundanity and turns it into magic

Rating: 9/10 (9 June 2007)

The first two Potter films were not bad movies. On the contrary, they were "pretty good". Of course, they were following Rowling's excellent stories as close as humanly possible within the span of a motion picture, so that does a lot to explain why they don't entirely suck.
Unfortunately, a book is not a movie, and Columbus doesn't have half the imagination of a director like Alfonso Cuaron. How can you take a series like Harry Potter--whose essence is to be so magical as to spark the imagination of its readers--and apply such a mundane approach to its transformation into film? It followed the letter of the books so closely that it was boring. There was nothing magical that hadn't been made a point of in Rowling's work.
And then along comes Cuaron. He changes the sets, swaps in a new Dumbledore to replace the sadly late Richard Harris, and proceeds to breathe life into the entire thing.
Sure, the result is less true to the text of Rowling's story; but it's far more true to its spirit. And just as importantly, it actually feels magical. There's not a shot in the movie without something exciting and imaginative going on.
And the child actors, stiff and unnatural under Columbus' direction, also come to life under Cuaron's careful guidance. They won't be winning any Oscars anytime soon, but at least they seem human and at least you can relate to them and feel their emotions.
Of course, the final element that makes Azkaban a superior Potter film is that, in my personal opinion, the story is just plain better than that of the first two books. It's more personal, and the puzzle-like plotting actually comes together neatly and believably (as long as you ignore minor time travel paradoxes, which will always occur whenever you use time travel as a plot device).
In any case, this is, to me, a beloved film, since it purely captures the spirit of the books that I love so much. Hats off to Cuaron, who did what Columbus did not, and actually created movie magic for a series that lives and breathes magic as its currency of wonderment.