Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Review
by Mark R. Leeper (markrleeper AT yahoo DOT com)June 7th, 2004
HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN
(a film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: Harry Potter is back at Hogwarts and this
year he has a crack at the man who betrayed and
murdered his parents. And the killer will have a
crack at Harry. All the survivors of previous
film are back, but the tone is darker. A new
director, Alfonso Cuaron, takes the series in some
different directions. Along for the fun are two
werewolves, shrunken heads, a hippogriff, and an
army of horrible phantom guardians. This is a
family film, not a children's film. The adults
may like it as much as any of the children in the
audience. But the series is reaching a point of
diminishing returns. Rating: +1 (-4 to +4) or 6/10
Are you bored in art museums? Ask the guard if they have a painting called "The Temptation of St. Anthony." I don't know much about St. Anthony or what tempted him but any artist who has every tried to paint his temptation created a weird and wonderful painting. They always have strange creatures who are fit to go bump in the night, no matter who the artist is. It is just like the fact that there is a different director doing Harry Potter films. We now have Alfonso Cuaron, the director of Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN, holding the reins. His vision for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry may be a little darker and more menacing than that of Chris Columbus's chapters, but it is no less fun.
Harry (played as usual by Daniel Radcliff) is back living with his muggle guardians and practicing his magic in secret. He is still treated like the Cinderella or Cosette of the family and is insulted by a rude dinner guest, against whom he takes a gassy revenge. Then in anger and frustration he runs away from home to return to Hogwarts. It takes a special magical cover up to make it possible for him ever to go home again. But things may be worse at Hogwarts. Sirius Black, a friend of Harry's dead parents who had betrayed and murdered them, has escaped from confinement at Azkaban Prison. Now protecting the school are the banshee-like Dementors who suck out the soul of the evil people they catch.
Cuaron chooses a style that is darker than the previous two films. The style change (and some of the new symbolism) seems to be much like that made between STAR WARS and THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. There is a bit less of the frivolous sort of jokes--talking hats, nearly headless ghosts, etc.--that punctuated the previous films as throwaways. There is much less in this film that is not central to the story. But still the plot progresses slowly and much of what Harry is able to do he does by having been given just the right magical aid or by just happening to be in the right place at the right time. Things were always a little contrived to make things work out well for Potter.
The script has a hard time deciding if Harry is an internationally famous wizard-to-be of great expectations or if he is the poor orphaned waif that the other boys like Draco Malfoy pick on. The two personas seem incompatible. If the story is slow to develop at least it gives us the usual Harry Potter toys like talking portraits on the walls and stairways that wander around. Some of these features are starting to figure in the plot rather than being temporary distractions. And we have to spend the first hour collecting clues. Why does every year at Hogwarts unfold as a detective mystery? Can't we have a good horror story or comedy once in a while?
I think the Harry Potter series will continue until every notable British actor has had a chance to show up at Hogwarts and perhaps teach a course or at least cast a spell. The late Richard Harris is not back, of course, so now the estimable Michael Gambon is Dumbledore. Maggie Smith is back as the fussy Professor Minerva McGonagall. Alan Rickman is the series's continuing red herring, Professor Severus Snape. I have to admit he is a personal favorite because he looks so sneerfully villainous and he always turns out to be one of the good guys. Disney seems to always have the bad guys repulsive or exaggeratedly manly and the good guys are usually either attractive or at least sympathetically drawn like Quasimodo. This year additions to the cast include David Thewlis, Emma Thompson, Timothy Spall, and Gary Oldman. Oldman has the other title role and once again blends so well into a role that he is nearly unrecognizable. (I got to the end of THE CONTENDER and asked, "So where was Gary Oldman?" This time I recognized him eventually, but my wife did not.) John Cleese was not present as his usual Nearly Headless Nick. It is just as well. He never fits into the plot and just seems to be plastered on as an afterthought.
The three main characters are not aging really well. Daniel Radcliff was charming as a young Harry Potter when he was cast something like three or four years ago. Now he is a teen with rather ordinary looks and no obvious acting talent. Soon he won't really resemble the character on the cover of the book. That may be a problem for the series. Rupert Grint as Ron Weasley is supposed to be nobody special in the story and so the demands on him to be magnetic are far less. Of the three central characters only Emma Watson as Hermione Granger seems to have real growth potential as an actor. Radcliff and Watson might come out of this series with career prospects like Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford respectively.
HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN is no worse than its predecessors, but there just is not enough that is new and original. If this were the first Harry Potter film it would rate considerably higher. But there is too much uniformity from one film to the next. It is another mystery set in the same environment, seen from another viewpoint, Cuaron's, but not enough different to make it absorbing. I rate this film a +1 on the -4 to +4 scale or 6/10.
Mark R. Leeper
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Copyright 2004 Mark R. Leeper
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