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The Story
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For twelve long years, the dread fortress of Azkaban held an infamous prisoner named Sirius Black. Convicted of killing thirteen people with a single curse, he was said to be the heir apparent to the Dark Lord, Voldemort. Now he has escaped, leaving only two clues as to where he might be headed: Harry Potter's defeat of You-Know-Who was Black's downfall as well. And the Azkaban guards heard Black muttering in his sleep, "He's at Hogwarts...he's at Hogwarts." Harry Potter isn't safe , not even within the walls of his magical school, surrounded by his friends. Because on top of it all, there may well be a traitor in their midst. |
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The Book
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I have to start with the book. First of all, there was one. Not that director Alfonso Cuaron took much notice of it. I've had it pointed out to me that I shouldn't compare this third installment film to the first two, but you have to. Director/Producer Chris Columbus established a world and characters in the first two films which, in my opinion, should have been carried over to any future films. J.K. Rowling has written five books, with two more promised ( Book number six, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, is due out this spring ). Where was her input on this film? If it had been my work being butchered, I'd speak up afterall. |
| Columbus stuck very closely to the first two books, created two very entertaining and fun films and it is very unsettling to have the natural flow of this world interrupted so severely by this third film. It is, in places, extremely choppy. Many events that appeared in the novel were rearranged, at times making it near impossible to follow the story, other events were added which never existed and other relevant pieces of the story were ignored entirely. Many, many liberties were taken with what was a wonderfully written book, to produce this mediocre film. | |
The Cast
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The three primary characters in this film have, over a short span of three years grown by leaps and bounds as actors. None of them had any prior acting experience before the first film ( Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone (2001)) but the rigors of working on the Potter series has really honed their acting abilities. None of these three are the age that their characters are supposed to be (3rd year students are 13 years old), but the age differences are not noticeable, yet. Emma is closest to her character's age (she's now 14) with Daniel coming in a close second (he's 15). Rupert is a 16 year old playing 13. |
| That explains the high pitched, whiny voice that Ron had throughout the second picture (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)). I had thought that perhaps he had been asked to play it that way, but in reality his voice was cracking. The difference is very evident in Azkaban, it's much deeper and the cracking has gone away. Also gone are the kids mouthing each other's lines. Watch the first two films and you'll see what I mean. There are several times in each movie where you can see one of them mouthing the words of a costar right along with them. Chalk it up to inexperience, I suppose. They weren't the only ones either, the young man playing Harry's cousin Dudley Dursley (Harry Melling) also can be seen doing it. |
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While looking quite a bit like Richard Harris, Michael Gambon does not deliver the same caliber performance that Harris did. Gambon had only a minimal part in the film, so it's hard to say exactly what, if anything, more he can bring to the part but I'd love to see him try. I understand that it's not really fair to compare him to Richard Harris, but Harris captured perfectly the impish, sage flavor of Albus Dumbledore. You could tell from the way he performed it that Dumbledore knew many things that he was not quick to let on to. This captured the spirit of Rowlings character perfectly. Perhaps Gambon will find Dumbledore in the next film (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) due out sometime in July 2005. |
| Gary Oldman as Sirius Black was casting perfection, although due to the Director's mishandling of the project, Oldman was not given a chance to fully explore the madness of Black. So much of what was thrown out could have allowed Oldman to more fully define the character. Fortunately for us, Sirius Black returns in book 5 in a major role. We can only pray that Director Cuaron will be too busy or unwilling to mutilate that film as well. |
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Special FX / Sound
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The special FX in this picture are wonderful. The Hippogriff, Buckbeak is completely CGI generated and looks real enough to ride. They also did a great job on the dementors (the Azkaban prison guards), they looked exactly as described in the novel. The sound quality however, left much to be desired. I had to watch the movie with my finger poised over the volume button on my remote because the sound quality was so poorly done. There are several places where the characters speak in whispers, requiring the volume to go almost all the way up, only to be followed by the next scene witch is deafening because it's a train or crowd scene with lots of cheering. This seems to be a problem throughout the entire series. |
Directing
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Oh, where do I start? How about picking a crappy director. I'll be the first to admit that Chris Columbus will never be recognized as a Stephen Speilberg or Alfred Hitchcock, but he's 1000% better than Cuaron will ever be. Cuaron took so many liberties with this film that I'm surprised at Warner Brothers and J.K. Rowling for allowing this travesty of a film to ever be released. There is nothing in this man's directing style that I find appealing. The use of fade ins and fade outs to represent Harry's blackouts felt cheesy at best and extremely choppy. Large sections of the story were thrown out, others totally ignored. Spoiler Alert! DEMENTORS DON'T FLY!!, The Marauder's Map does not have little feet on it!, Lupin sees Peter Pettigrew on the map first, not Harry!, The whole thing with Snape being levitated out of the Shrieking Shack near the end would have been extremely funny...if they'd bothered with Snape at all. He was only a bit player, at best, in this film. Why did Allen Rickman even bother to show up? A word of advice to WB, next time....STICK TO THE GODDAMNED BOOK!!!
K. Mangum - December 2004 |
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