MOVIE REVIEW: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
MOVIE REVIEW: Harry Potter
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Daniel Radcliffe, David Thewlis) 1/2
Perhaps I was too hard on the first Harry Potter movie. When I first saw it, I found it difficult to temper my indifferent reaction to the material with the craftsmanship by which it was made. Even as the credits for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone were rolling (by this point, I would argue there is certainly far more sorcery than philosophy or anything else, for that matter), I was unenthused at the thought of watching any other entry in the series. Upon seeing the third installment, it is only to fair to confess that Mr. Potter and his bag of magic tricks are simply not my thing. Since the motion pictures are well-made and well-cast, perhaps it's just as well to say there's nothing wrong with either really loving them, or being absolutely and completely indifferent to them, as is the case for me. It would appear their spells and charms are destined never to land on my heathen heart.
In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Daniel Radcliffe is back as the young wizard with a mysterious past. After a temper tantrum with his foster family goes awry, Harry returns to Hogwarts School, a half-Oxford, half-Cheers-like school where everybody knows your name. Also back are his friends Danny Bonaduce and Gaby Hoffman, two teens who only bicker long enough to make you realize it's just a matter of time before, in an act of pent-up pubescent pressure, Ron will soon be waving his magic wand at Hermione's... cat.
The plot this time around is dark and discomforting to sit through, especially knowing wide-eyed children everywhere will be gobbling it up by the bushel. An alleged murderer has escaped a magical prison and Harry and his friends will need to get to the bottom of a twelve-year old mystery. They'll need to watch their backs though, there are Dementors (essentially, the Wraiths from Lord of the Rings) around every corner, a book of spells with fangs and a nasty bite, people turning into werewolves, and a tree that attacks anyone that dares to approach it. This ain't no ride at Disneyworld.
It's amazing how much more refined a movie of this kind comes across when an A list of British actors steps forward and takes on any number of cameo roles. Timothy Spall, Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon and Emma Thompson would make any filmmaker's dream cast list. Add to that some impressively delightful caricature turns by David Thewlis, Gary Oldman and especially Alan Rickman as the slithering Professor Snape, and you have the potential to really rock it on home. However, with no less than two dozen characters in the mix, by its convoluted conclusion, the plot literally necessitates a travel back in time just to explain how everything ties together (to be fair, this part was my favourite sequence of the movie).
Risqué filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón steps into the director's chair this time around, but fans of the earlier entries aren't likely to notice much of a difference. There are still a lot of forced laughs, namely in the form of some practical jokes on muggles who "have it coming to them". It is only on these few occasions that gasps of delight could be heard by younguns at the theatre showing I was at; otherwise a lot of yawns and even from time to time some rambling conversations overlapping the onscreen goings-on.
As with the first film, I found the special effects in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban to be sub-par, particularly any scenes that involved flying in any capacity (be it on a broom or on a mythical creature known as a hippogriff). Indeed, with borderline phony effects throughout the picture, in retrospect the parts I liked the best were the ones where no magic or myth were deployed. With fantastical box office success in this ever-growing franchise spun by author J.K. Rowling, and given the heaps of talent onboard both onscreen and behind the camera, it's odd that I continue to be unable to feel any sense of movie magic at all. Maybe I'm the orphan, not Harry.
