Review of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) by Christopher E — 20 Aug 2017

A deeper and more creepy installment, with a lot more layered story and fun moments.

Prisoner of Azkaban also marks the introduction of Sirius Black (Gary Oldman), who has escaped from the title prison after 12 years of incarceration. Believed to have been the right-hand-man of the dark wizard Voldemort, whom Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) mysteriously rendered powerless during his infancy, some of those closest to Harry suspect Black has returned to exact revenge on the boy who defeated his master.

There's a lot of things to love about the third installment in the franchise, even if it still has a couple of problems. However, it improves upon the mistakes it had made in previous films, while also adding new aspects for us to enjoy. This film is filled with more magic than we have ever seen, while still finding more reasons to love the characters that we've already been introduced to.

The film starts out with its classic introduction. Harry is having a miserable time at his house with his obviously abusive parents. After conflict, he leaves and makes his way to Hogwarts. There, another threat lurks that puts his life in jeopardy. Along with that, a new Dark Arts teacher (oddly suspicious) arrives and Harry and his friends go on their adventures. It follows the similar format of previous films, but it does a good job of taking a few twists and turns here and there.

I do like this film more than the first two for multiple reasons, ones that aren't neccesarily a negative on the first two films. We do get to see even more progression from our third year characters. Harry is growing up and wants to learn more about his family, Ron and Hermione grow a tad closer as the film's been foreshadowing their relationship since movie number one, and the wizarding world gets more rumors of the return of Voldemort. We get to learn a little more about our characters and see how their skills have developed over the past few years. It gives us an even more nice and interesting ark.

This film in particular took and interesting and even more exceptional route to its storytelling. I like the way this story was told compared to the first two films. It had some elements that I didn't particularly care for, but I won't speak of as they would be spoilers (basically the finale). However, it strayed from the format that the first two films embraced, but it worked out pretty decently. I thought the screenplay was really well written and I still had a lot of fun with this film. You can see the transition toward a darker story and I can't wait to see more.

In the end, objectively, this film surpasses the first two films. Subjectively, I honestly had just as much fun with this film as I did with the first two films. That is why even thought it was an exceptionally made film, I'm still going to give it the solid rating I gave the first two films.