The third film in the Harry Potter series, ‘Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban’ once again sees the series take another step in the darker direction. This is certainly the most ‘adult’ of the films some far in a series that just seems to get better and better it does on… now that can’t be said about very many films these days.
‘Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban’ finds Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) in his third year at Hogwarts. Sick of the way he is treated Harry runs away from his Aunt and Uncle but on arrival back in the ‘magic’ world finds there is a great disturbance with the escape of Sirius Black (Gary Oldman) from Azkaban prison. While there is concern that Hogwarts (and more importantly Harry Potter) may be his target, it is believed to be well protected by ‘Dementers’, these creaturs also seem to enjoy attacking Harry. While Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson) try their best to help him, it is Professor Remus Lupin (David Thewlis) who seems to be the only one who can truly protect him. He also seems to know a lot about Harry’s past and Harry eagerly learns from him.
Once again we see a new Director come into the series, Alfonso Cuaron (who later went onto do ‘Children Of Men’) and he is the right person to direct, this the darkest of the series so far. He has a brilliant script to work with (thanks to the very talented Steve Kloves) and the film manages to look great despite some dodgy CG when it comes to the werewolves later in the film. Kloves once again does a magnificent job converting J.K Rowlings’s work to the screen, and even though he has a very difficult task in converting some very ‘adult and dark’ content into ‘Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban’, he manages to do it in such a way that the film wouldn’t upset children too much if they happened to see it.
This film also sees the inclusion of Michael Gambon as Professor Albus Dumbledore after the untimely death of Richard Harris, and while Gambon does an amazing job it does take a while to get used to him as Dumbledore… and with Harris as his predecessor he certainly has big shoes to fill. Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint step into their own this time round and even sharing scenes with experienced actors such as Robbie Coltrane and Alan Rickman seems to no longer over-awe them. The inclusion of Gary Oldman and David Thewlis to the series lifts the acting stakes and both are brilliant in their roles.
It seems as the Harry Potter series gets darker and darker the scripts and acting just get better. This is by far the best in the series so far.
Year: 2004
Director: Alfonso Cuaron
Stars: Daniel Radcliffe, Gary Oldman, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, David Thewlis, Michae Gambon, Robbie Coltrane, Alan Rickman
Classification: PG
Runtime: 141 mins
Rating: 