Rowling! Kloves! Columbus! Take back your movies!

Rating: Null/10 (6 July 2004)

It's entertaining, if a bit confusing, to read reviews that praise a director's style while complaining that it's hard to follow the story. One of the things we might ask of a director of a film based on a complex novel is that he or she tell us that story without sacrificing narrative to flashy visuals. If Prisoner of Azkaban is an indication of the route to be taken the ads for the next Harry Potter film will read something like:
YOUR FAVORITE TEEN WIZZ KIDS ARE BACK IN A NON-STOP
Roller-coaster RIDE! IT'S A SLAMMIN', JAMMIN' TIME AS
THE GANG IS JOINED BY AN ANIMATED STREETWISE HIP-HOP
TALKING ANIMAL SIDEKICK FEATURING THE VOICE TALENTS OF
EDDIE MURPHY! ALL THE BORING STORY LINES HAVE BEEN CUT
AND REPLACED WITH THE UNUSED SCRIPT FOR SPY KIDS 4! Talk about a scary movie...
To put all this in perspective, the movie looks great, the cast does a fine job, I loved the score and any fan of the books will be able to fill in the blanks in the story line. Still, I'm wondering how much of the director's job we should be doing. As for the "edgy" and "dark" qualities the PR department has been emphasizing, these qualities have always been present in the stories - nicely balanced with humor and a genuine sense of wonder.