The third instalment in the infamous Harry Potter film franchise, Prison of Azkaban, takes a relatively child-centric medium of stories filled with atypical components of any standard magical fantasy and ups its content to a level that can be enjoyed and even taken seriously by both young and old. While these films have a strong fan-base surrounding them much like their source material that will praise each film individually, the general consensus is that the 2004 film version of Prison of Azkaban is the best film. Regardless of where the franchise would go after this, this one definitely shines as one of the strongest. Preparing to start his third year of school, Harry Potter (played by Daniel Radcliffe) discovers that his life is once again in danger as he has become the target of notorious murderer Sirius Black (played by Gary Oldman), a follower of Voldemort who has escaped the wizard prison, Azkaban, and is hunting down Harry to get revenge for his master. With the school feeling bleaker than ever, mainly due to the ghostly Azkaban wardens named Dementors prowling the grounds as a means of protection for the students, Harry, along with his friends Ron and Hermione (played by Rupert Grint and Emma Watson), unravel the frightening connection Sirius has with Harry’s parents, which sends Harry down a path of longing for revenge and plans to kill Sirius himself if he does find him. The race is on between who will find who first and be able to take their revenge on the other, all the while a much more secretive figure lurks in the shadows that could result in a greater evil being re-awoken. The first two movies were charming and magical enough to suck people in, but this films takes this story of wizards and fantastical creatures and turns it into a much more adult narrative without losing its unique spark and edge. Through great directing, pacing, and storytelling, it delivers a brand-new experience on a product that everyone was familiar with at this point, bringing in a much needing change to the status quo and proving that this franchise was willing to grow up with its audience. Though still suffering from issues that plague the previous films, what this film accomplishes is nothing short of magical.

The story to all these movies has very similar layouts; often involving a main threat slowing being revealed coupled with everyday school life for the young heroes. However, this film actually takes that formula and reinvigorates it with much clearer direction and purpose, despite the fact that arguably, this movie has very little purpose in the overall story line of this franchise. While certain elements become crucial later on and a certain figure introduced in this film is a key player in the franchise, it’s hard to ignore how a majority of this plot feels incredibly secondary even for this franchise (the previous two stories were almost remakes of each other). With that said, the time and attention it takes in playing out its well-crafted story completely sucks the audience in. Most ‘diversions’ presented in this film actually have a payoff later on and the length of the movie actually uses the time to properly build up a mystery that does have good clues that reveal the truth and keeps the ambiguity strong throughout. The film’s director, Alfonso Cuarón does a great job at creating and evolving Harry Potter’s style and altering it to fit a grimmer atmosphere whilst not dropping its whimsical nature. It truly captures the age of its characters and feelings of being a teenager; where the emotions are high, the confusion is overwhelming, and the world seems much more dangerous and uncertain whether from your own perception or how others start to treat you. The directing carries the movie, as the atmosphere goes darker but not to an ugly point, the pacing is very good, the cinematography by Michael Seresin is nice and clean, the scenes are well-constructed, the actors are pretty well led, the tone is perfectly balanced, and it does all this with source material that doesn’t very easily correspond with a more mature direction. The downside is that even though the director does a great job turning this story into a surprisingly engaging watch, it can’t escape the bland characters and the lack of real progression. It tries to give moments that could be more interesting, but the characters haven’t got enough spark or even establishment to have a solid development, therefore it feels like watching a project that thrives on its visual components but not a lot on its writing. The script for this film by returning writer Steve Kloves, doesn’t feel too different from what has been delivered previous in terms of light-hearted banter and even world-crafting (which are both handled fine), but because this film actually has a better sense of gravitation and engagement, the obvious flaws start to actively become an issue whereas before they were just annoyances. The amount of time these films have taken until something relevant occurs in its story leaves each movie only adding a tiny droplet of relevant information, with this one literally only featuring an ominous warning. Also, the film’s final third goes in a very bizarre direction with the inclusion of time travel, which not only pads out a fairly good running time to an unneeded extra degree with no interesting new developments to make up for it, but also brings up a lot of plot holes in the movies prior and going forward (although this is more a problem with the original J.K Rowling book rather than the film specifically).

The characters, as already mentioned, don’t have the proper developments to fit into a story that warrants interesting twists and turns. Most of the old cast, mainly the main three, are faced with a much more adult situation that shapes the mold for them in the future going from kids to teenagers, but they don’t seem to develop in the movie at all, sticking to the very clear archetypes each have been set with since the first film. The new characters introduced have good mystery behind them, but aren’t written with equally interesting traits, with most of the passion coming more from the actors. The older cast again excels at delivering the serious and comical side to the story very well, especially Alan Rickman who is just a pure treasure in all these movies with how much he gets into his role, and the new cast does blend into this world quite effectively even though they feel a little more contemporary and fresher in comparison to the more prestigious and classical actors that came before them. Gary Oldman gives a good mentally broken performance as Sirius Black, David Thewlis balances out the madness with his dignified appeal, Dawn French and Emma Thompson give some nice relief throughout this bleak movie, Timothy Spall is a great weaselly little slime-ball as one of the bad guys, and Michael Gambon, though not as wistfully magically as the late Richard Harris, gives a likeably whimsical, but still composed and intelligent performance as Dumbledore. While a lot of people were turned off by this recast as many saw the two as completely different characters (which is a fair statement as it does feel like that), both still feel like reasonable effective performances that get the job done. Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson are now growing up and have to start acting in a more grown-up setting which (to their credit) they are able to pull off passable enough. It’s hard to say they are great as they do still need some improvements due to an occasional poor line-read, but you can always feel the passion they put into their work and when they need to sound in distress or mad, they do manage those moments pretty decently.

The films beforehand did take the time and effort to physically create some of the creatures and environments showcased as a means of properly conveying to the world they had been teleported an actual magical world, whereas now it has gone more into the all-too familiar realms of CGI. The locations themselves look fine enough but have lost that more down-to-earth feel and have become much cleaner and less authentic. Ironically the entire production design for this film handled by Stuart Craig feels entirely different from the previous two films from everything down to design, coloration, lighting, architecture, even the costume design handled by Jany Temime has an entirely different feel, which seems like an element that came from Cuarón (who does bring a gritter sense to some of his movies). This is one of the few areas where the more serious approach works against the film, as it has become a pretty bland looking production. The film is severely lacking in color, featuring a lot of dull greys and blues, which works for the more somber scenes, but leaves the rest of the film feeling very washed out. Most of the magical creatures don’t look the best, but thankfully aren’t the worst either, it’s enough to work through in the movie but too much is spent on one of the main creatures, a hippogriff named Buckbeak, who overall feels like more of a catalyst to drag out the last third and nothing else, and the effects do wear off after a long time of seeing him. The dementors, while essentially being a lookalike to various other fantasy creatures of similar supernatural attire (particularly the Ring Wraiths within The Lord of the Rings), do have a creepy otherworldly feel to them with the simple black cloak and ghostly presence, along with their great introduction scene aboard a train and the lack of music whenever they appear. The soundtrack gives a nice new twist on the already famous score by John Williams, featuring some very unique sounding instruments that give off that quirkier magical vibe to a brand-new piece. The film is surprisingly funnier than most of the other movies, with well-timed humor that is smart enough to entertain both ages without undermining the other, as well as giving some nice levity to a story focused on much heavier topics.

The Prisoner of Azkaban triumphantly holds the title of being one of the best, if not the best, movie in the Harry Potter franchise. It took a transitional period and handled it with great care and timing, so it didn’t feel too drastic to change the already established formula and did it with great talent and great care. The first two laid the groundwork and enticed audiences with charming and creative visuals, and this film hooked them with a nice new level of intrigue which were unseen in previous installments, through brilliant directing, effective pace to its mystery, a story that keeps the audience interested, and all done in a movie that, in reality, has little purpose in the grand plan of all the films. Even if it suffers from the stale characters and the franchises laboriously slow way of telling its plot, how it managed to create something that works on both a kid’s and an adult’s attention span with those issues intact, truly says a lot. Check it out and see the beloved franchise in a brand new and magically bright light.

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