Good Visuals, Spirit Missing

Rating: Null/10 (4 June 2004)

Sorry for my poor English, I will be trying to do my best to be as clear and understandable as possible...
I don't know how to start... The movie looks much more professional then the previous two of the series with more convincing visuals, now the hogwarts looks more real, halfhorse creature (hippogriff), werevolf (Lupin), Dementors (although they are flying in the movie, it fits the movie and storyline), but missing some essential parts as the competition between the houses of the Hogwarts, Quidditch matchs lacking the excitement, lacking conversations between the characters (although Lupin and Harry conversations are doing well to explain about Harry's family background).
The storyline advances really quick that you start feeling watching an action movie, characters running from one scene to another to catch bad guys/solve problems. If you ignore the speeches between Lupin and Harry's, I find life in Hogwarts is missing from the movie. For example what happened to the houses of Hogwarts? Quidditch? Malfoy being coward??? Where is Hermione struggling to catch her tight schedule for her many lessons (this will solve the nonconvincing one sentence explanation for the time rewinding charm Hermione is carrying)? Why can't Snape reveal the contents of the map but Lupin can, and why Harry is not surprised when Lupin can instantly reveal the secret of the map? Where are the other characters of the Hogwarts? They only appear in one or two scenes. Most of the characters appear only once or twice, and you watch a movie acted by 10 actors (Harry, Ron, Hermione, Snapes, James, Lupin, Sirius, Peter, Dumbledore, Haggards) NOTE: May be I am expecting too much from a movie, you can not have all the details from the book? Where are the details about the friendship between James, Lupin, Sirius and Peter? How did Sirius escaped from Ascaban? Hermione and Ron argues through the whole story because of crookshanks and making Harry's life more hard to live, but this is almost skipped in the movie.
But there are great good things to talk about the movie also: The camera angles, movements, darkness of the scenes, details of Hippogliff (Buckbeak), werewolf and Dementors are great, primary actors (Harry/Rone/Hermione) are much better being grown ups now, and you really feel that you are watching now grownup teenagers (all reflecting that psychology also) instead of children which suits well, Snapes is again great, Prof Trelawney is a perfect fit, knight bus, defence against dark arts lessons are expressed almost flawlessly.
Also I can say that there is enough humour in the film balancing the dark scenes although sometimes at unexpected times (wild tree catching blue bird).
Dumbledore replacement Michael Gambon is much more OK than I expected, Severus Snape and Sybil Trelawney are perfect fit. Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley are much better in this movie, especially Emma Watson as Hermione and Rupert Grint as Ron.
SUMMARY: Really good movie lacking some essential details and spirit, I would give 10/10 if it was 10-15 minutes longer to fill in some missing essential details in the storyline and giving more depth to characters, I didn't like seeing action at all the times, I like to see real life like thing as arguments between characters, suffering because of anger, friendship, competition between characters... I give this movie 7/10, the others were 5/10 by the way... This movie is still not comparable with LOTR series, but now there is hope for the oncoming one(s?). Following movies can be just perfect if they can make the movie(s) before characters start shaving.