Prisoner of Azkaban

Rating: 3/10 (25 September 2005)

I am an avid Harry Potter fan, have read all the books and enjoyed them immensely. The first 2 films captured the adventure and mood that J.K.Rowling incorporated into the books. They were exciting and full of mystery and intrigue.
I waited with baited breath for the third film "The Prisoner of Azkaban" expecting it to be of the same quality as the first two, only to be terribly disappointed.
Prior to seeing it, all I had heard was how dark and more adult the film was and how it had added more to the story. Well all I can say is that I was badly disappointed with the whole thing.
The screenplay was badly written, the direction or possibly the editing was poor, and I am inclined to think that it was more the direction. I felt that even though the individual scenes were fairly well filmed and directed, the story just had no flow. The scenes just seemed to start and end and there was no connection or continuity between them.
The special effects concerning Professor Lupin's werewolf and Sirius Black's morphing in to a dog were amateur in the extreme. Lupin's werewolf reminded me very much of an old plastacine character called "Morph" that featured on Tony Hart's old BBC art programme. Black's dog looked just like a pen and ink drawing. Surely with all the money that is available for the production of a film like this it would be possible to come up with more believable special effect than this.
Well at least they have dumped the last director and gone For Mike Newell, hopefully this will bring a re-think and perhaps re-introduce some of the original innocence and fun of the first two films, One lives in hope.