Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban [2004] [DVD]

That said, I really enjoyed the first two films. Faithful to the script and visually stunning, they were a little fluffy but overall very good.

Prisoner of Azkaban is, for me, different. I'm in no way disputing the talents of the three main cast members. Radcliffe, Grint and Watson deliver sterling performances among a cast of very well known English actors. The film is again visually stunning, with the dark, gothic atmosphere of the books captured in perfect detail.

What then, I hear you cry, am I complaining about? Quite simply, there are three things:

1. The script: Good in places, DIRE elsewhere. I know the films are geared towards a younger audience, but as the majority of Potter fans know the books inside out, why deviate to the extent Azkaban has? The reason Potter is so popular is because it's wonderfully written.

2. The central thread of the book plot has been mercilessly hijacked. Okay, I know some changes have to be made because of time constraints, but I sat through the film going, "WHAT? Why on earth has the story been twisted out of all recognition?"

Because it has been.

The basics are there...Harry's 3rd year, murderer on the loose, tone getting darker, reasonably happy ending. The bits in between - i.e. the actual continuity - has been twisted and warped beyond all recognition. I could have come up with several ways to shorten the plot enough to make it filmable, and none of them included the ludicrous way it was actually done.

3. Hermione Sue: Writers and readers of fan-fiction will know what a Mary Sue is. In fanfiction, a Mary Sue is a character from a book (e.g. Hermione from HP) who has all her original traits removed and is turned into an ass kicking, unbeatable super-hero type who can do no wrong. This happened to Hermione in film 3. She's distracting werewolves, she's saving lives, she makes comments about her own hair that are so un-Hermione-esque I wanted to cry.

I know it all sounds petty but as an avid reader of the HP books, one of the most beautiful things about the characters is that they're not perfect, even if they are know-it-alls! They're flawed but wonderful. Turn a character into an all singing, all dancing Wonderwoman and you lose the character entirely. If you lose the character entirely, what's the point in having 'em in at all?

To conclude, if you're after a great adventure flick with wonderful imagery and have a smattering of knowledge about the Potter universe, no doubt you'll adore this film. It's as visually perfect as its predecessors, and the quality of acting is superb.

What a shame the cast had to contend with such a dire adaptation. Sorry, Steve Kloves, but your film has disappointed loyal Harry fans to the core. If you're having difficuly believing there's so much attention to detail being paid to the Potter universe, think of it like this: it's like Peter Jackson making a Lord of the Rings movie but making Gollem an out and out good guy, Frodo a surfer-hunk type, and took the wonderful wording of Tolkien and rewrote the script himself. No matter how viually stunning it will be, it'll still be appauling, right? Well, it's the same with Harry.

This was the one that brought the Harry Potter movies out of the whole kids-flick category and into something much more interesting. For the first time we get a REAL movie rather than sections of the book cobbled together and forced onscreen like the first two were. It's stylish and contains performances with real emotion and integrity, particularly in the scenes between Harry and Lupin, and finally scenes with the young actors that didn't feel like kids in a play. Everything is much more natural and less cliched. Sadly some of this adaptation-by-numbers routine returned in Goblet of Fire, which is why Azkaban is still my favourite (though Goblet is still great).

I must mention John Williams's score which is incredible, one of his best ever which is a feat in itself considering his massive body of work including Jaws, Jurassic Park and the Star Wars series. The main 'Window To The Past' theme is so beautiful and perfect for Harry Potter. I really hope Williams returns for later movies as he couldn't do Goblet of Fire due to Revenge of the Sith commitments.

Anyhow, if you only want to watch one Harry Potter movie then this is it because it stands on it's own and you don't really need to know what happens in the first two.