Finally, a Harry Potter movie not just for kids.

Rating: Null/10 (2 September 2004)

There was absolutely nothing wrong with the first two Harry Potter films, and Chris Columbus did an admirable job of capturing much of the feel of the first two books after which they were made. But Book Three, Prisoner of Azkaban, started on a darker path, and here is where a change of mood was required. No longer does Hogwarts look like a Disney film, but rather like the medieval castle it is. Cuaron sees the world of Wizardry and Witchcraft for what it is, that is, essentially Middle Ages in aspect. Wizards' homes have no electricity, none of the regular modern amenities, and their world, even as Rowling paints it, is more like the Dark Ages. Rowling herself advised Cuaron that while the first two films followed the books faithfully, they lacked the spark of creative storytelling quite necessary to take the much larger book and pare it down into a couple of hours. Others have written that the story felt rushed, but that is a tribute to the complexity of Rowling's story. Ask a person who has not read the book what they think of "Prisoner" and I think you'll find they followed it very well. In thinking about this, I too felt that the set-up for the "three turns" time twist was a bit weak, but only because Rowling reiterates it so often in the book. This is really unnecessary for the film, and the few references in the middle of the film work quite nicely.
I had an initial problem with the actor playing Lupin at first, because he wasn't my vision of the character. But then I saw him as the weary world traveler type with a mysterious past, and the character came alive. I was also struck, early in the film, by the way in which the lines were being delivered by the primaries, sounding more like a stage play than a screenplay, as if projecting to a large, live audience. But this too ceased to be a problem.
The overall richness of the locations was a huge change over the previous films. This one simply has more atmosphere and scale, and the sense of something dire about to happen is infused throughout. This gives the film a much broader appeal than its predecessors, since as the books get darker, as the characters mature, so must the stories that are brought to the screen have deeper emotion.
Harry Potter, as those who have read all five books so far know, is not Peter Pan. He has real anger, real emotions, real adolescent turmoil. I can only hope that the subsequent movies (it is rumored that Goblet of Fire may be turned into two movies to accommodate its length) continue to grow this theme. As do real people, the fictional Potter must outgrow the Disneyesque pristineness of youth and begin to embrace the problems and ugliness in the world -- his world -- the magical one with evil wizards and dark secrets.
As a Baby Boomer, I resisted reading the books until recently, when I read them all one after the other as if they were one book. I have to say that Rowling too is maturing in her storytelling. This can only be good for the next books, and, we hope, for the next Harry Potter films.
-- TGRegner