The magical community is in panic as a murderous villain has escaped from Azkaban prison and is now on the loose. Harry's third year at Hogwarts sees the school heavily guarded, and with new safety rules in place, it looks like it's going to be a difficult year. This is where we get to the meat of the stories. The first two films were really just the central trio solving some mystery or achieving some goal. Here everything becomes a lot darker, sinister, and begins to link events in all the films, past, present and future.
Harry has finally been pushed to the extreme limit by his aunt and uncle. Upon running away from home, Harry goes straight to the Leaky Cauldron where he meets up with Hermione and the Weasley family. Whilst staying at the inn, Harry learns from Mr Weasley that a follower of Lord Voldemort has recently escaped from Azkaban prison, the first person in history to ever have achieve such a feat. Harry is also told that Black has escaped solely for one purpose: to find Harry and kill him.
With Hogwarts school heavily guarded by fierce soul-sucking Dementors and everyone with their eye on him, Harry is in for a really tough year.
As I said before, this is where the films take a turn for the dark and sinister. The greatest example for this is the Dementors. Horrible cloaked creatures that feed on the happiness of people, these creatures are not for the faint-hearted.
At this point, I will draw attention to the awesome special effects. We haven't really talked about them before, but we may as well with this film. The effects in The Philosopher's Stone were done very quickly and very simply, rather mediocre. In The Chamber of Secrets there was more attention to effects, what with Aragog the giant spider and the Basilisk. But in Prisoner of Azkaban you really notice the improvement. The Dementors were exactly how I imagined them to be. Although they spend all their time covered by floating and shredded black fabric, the parts of flesh you do see are scabbed and rotted, just as described in the book.
I will also take this opportunity to let people know that this film was the first movie in which the directors changed. Christopher Columbus directed the first two films and this one is directed by Alfonso Cuaron. I have to say that you can tell. There are a couple of small things about this movie that I didn't like. First, they uprooted all of Hogwarts and brought it to Scotland, changing where everything is situated in the process. I don't know, it was just kind of annoying to see the Whomping Willow in the middle of a courtyard in Chamber of Secrets, and then seeing it on a hill a good 10 minute walk away from the castle in Prisoner of Azkaban. The one other thing about this film that annoyed me was the transitions into new scenes. Scenes changed so quickly and jaggedly that it looked a little more like a commercial. There is the occasional seamless and smooth scene change, but there are just so many that go black and then, BANG, you're on a bridge with Professor Lupin before you can count to 3. Everything else is great aside from these two little points.
The performances from the kids were brilliant. Because the characters are growing up, the actors must as well and it was great to see them all exploring new emotional territories. Dan has his outbursts of anger and then we see him sobbing. It was great. Then there is all the arguing between Ron and Hermione. This is a film where tempers run high and the central actors did a fantastic job. Kudos.
All our favourite actors reprise their roles and we have a few new faces to welcome as well:
Michael Gambon as Albus Dumbledore
Gary Oldman as Sirius Black
Emma Thompson as Professor Trelawney
David Thewlis as Remus Lupin
Timothy Spall as Peter Pettigrew
Pam Ferris as Aunt Marge
Lenny Henry as the Shrunken Head
Dawn French as the Fat Lady
Julie Christie as Madame Rosmerta
As I mentioned in that list, Michael Gambon replaces Richard Harris as Professor Dumbledore after Richard sadly passed away after The Chamber of Secrets. R.I.P Richard.
Filled with everything from werewolves to time-travel, The Prisoner of Azkaban is the last of the PG rated Harry Potter films. A wonderful movie for the whole family (if you cover the little ones' eyes at the scary bits).
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