Jon Reviews: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (movie)
Jon Reviews: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (movie)
Hello and Welcome to my review of the movie Harry Potter and the Prisoner and Azkaban. This is a great movie and an overall successful adaptation of what is probably my second favorite book of the series and continues a trend from the first two movies (reviews linked above) of improving quality (and I would imagine production budget) and success in capturing the feel and content of the book. Speaking of books, if you are interested in my writing then I have two books available on Amazon “The Shadow of the Past” and “And the Sun Burned Red.”
What worked for me. I have longed felt that this is a very strong movie and overall I feel that it still holds up very well. The CGI, in some ways less relied upon than previous films, has shown a clear improvement in quality, with Buckbeak, Dementors, and the werewolf being particularly effective examples. The performances are, once more, very strong with David Thewlis’ Lupin, Gary Oldman’s Sirius, and Alan Rickman’s Snape being particular effective in their portrayals. I particularly love the character of Lupin, who just like in the book is exactly the kind of teacher that one would want in school. Daniel Radcliffe is once more really quite effective as Harry and it is fun to see them including the sass and sense of mischief that Harry has in the books that is frequently left out of the movie. Emma Watson really shines in this movie as well serving as a great support and friend to Harry, although I suspect that her strong performance in this movie is what led to her increasingly taking over much of Ron’s function in the books. The pacing of the story is effective, you find out pieces of information and get hints at others at a good rate, and the ending is dramatic, action packed, well paced, and suspenseful. While they still largely fade into the background and have little impact, it is nice to include a few scenes of the rest of the students and them hanging out together. The Dementors are particularly effective as antagonists, and very creepy and the lessons about perception and loyalty are well executed.
What didn’t work for me. The horrific abuse of the Dursley’s from the previous movie are totally forgotten about and they are once more treated as slightly comical, which continues to be unsettling and has not aged well with this story. One of the things that is a major part of the story is the sense of this taking place over a school year and in a school. Most of the students once more play virtually no role other than floating around in the background and the movie jumps quickly through time. This doesn’t cut too much into this story, but serves to have some of the fates of the characters later in the series have far less impact than they do in the books because we don’t really know them. I feel like there are some sequences that they could have cut down (like the lengthy Knight Bus scene, Harry wrestling with the Monster Book of Monsters, etc.) to make more room for other characters, or including more about the mystery of what Hermoine is doing and he increasingly exhausted behavior, and them working on Buckbeak’s case. More could have also been made about the omens that Professor Trelawney keeps predicting for Harry, and the reaction of others to it. This would have given some of the later scenes like finding out Buckbeak being scheduled to die, and Hermoine storming out of the Divination class all the more impactful.
How this works as an adaption of the book. Like the first two movies, this is an overall successful interpretation of the book. As mentioned above it doesn’t capture the depth of the setting or side characters, and cuts some of the side storylines which lend the story more punch. While we can all wish for a full miniseries for each of the book to fully capture every nuance in the story, and I think there are some unnecessarily drawn out sequences for dramatic effect that could have been replaced with a little more character work, I think this movie captures the essence and all of the important points of the book. Probably the biggest difference is the character of Snape. While Alan Rickman is fantastic here, the Snape in the movies is almost a totally different character than in the books. Book-Snape is a horrible person and teacher, and for the first time in Prisoner of Azkaban it is possible to see just how angry, vindictive, and obsessed with the past that he is and genuinely not caring who gets in the way of that vindictiveness. While we see a few glimpses in this movie like his scene taking over the Defense Against the Dark Arts class and being the thing that Neville fears the most, Movie-Snape is much more composed and level-headed, and far less hateful in his interactions with Harry and even Sirius and Remus towards the end. Additionally, Movie-Snape immediately putting himself between the trio and werewolf-Lupin is simply not something that I can picture Book-Snape doing. Personally, I have long argued that the perception that Snape is a misunderstood good person, and a tragically romantic one, is almost entirely from Movie-Snape. Alan Rickman portrays Snape with a sort of melancholy sadness and the movies largely leave out scenes of him being a terrible teacher, much of his anger and petty vindictiveness, ignores his dark nature as a young man, and gives him more heroic and nuanced scenes than are featured in the book. Book-Snape is a fascinating character, and an important lesson that just because people are on the side of good, that they can still be bad people, but a good person Snape is not, and his obsession with Lily is not tragically romantic, it is creepy.
At the end of the day, while it is not a perfect movie or a perfect adaptation of the book, this is still a great movie that I enjoyed watching. One good test of that is while watching the first two movies, I was enjoying watching the movie but I didn’t much bother with pausing the movie if I had to get up something, but this movie I paused when I needed to get up. I hope you all enjoyed my review and that you enjoy my review.
Also, you buying, rating, and reviewing my books would be awesome!
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