Review of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) by Filmtrashreview — 05 Jul 2011

So the third film takes a much darker route then the first two. I don't mind the darkness and acclaimed best Potter film but this is the shortest and yet it feels like the longest of the films. This film was dumbed down to Hollywood standard and honestly I don't feel that this director saved the series at all.

The twists in this film are a lot better then "The Chamber of Secrets" and the new look of Harry Potter is visually stunning but I still feel that the filmmakers thought audience members were stupid.

They included a pointless segment of the Willow Tree just to show the changing of season. We dealt without this in the first two films, why do we need it now? The only reason that I can think of is the fact that the art direction was completely lacking in this film.

We couldn't tell the changing of seasons without those pointless Willow Tree shots and on top of that every character seems to now be wearing fashionable clothing. When watching the behind-the-scenes of this film I found out that the actors were allowed to choose what they wanted to wear.

I feel in doing this, Alfonso and his crew wanted to make a summer blockbuster more then the wanted to make a good fantasy film.