Scary but scarry trotter. Review on Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban Movie

Scrape off the glistening goldens to reveal the slinky silvers; splash the cheerful sky-blues with buckets of black and let the fierce fans slap the hair of the three adolescents way back.(Before you start scratching your uncombed hair, this was basically my imagination as I stood outside the theatre, pondering that if this dead-on target promotion doesn?t give way the mood of the film, wonder what does!)

Not long before you have made yourself comfortable, the action jumpstarts with a wine-glass exploding in Aunt Marge?s hand as she points her immediately provoking words at Potter (''It's one of the basic rules of breeding. You see it all the time with dogs. If there's something wrong with the bitch, there'll be something wrong with the pup''). Of course she hasn?t yet realised that Potter?s thirteen and expecting him to be mum is like keeping a soap-bubble from bursting. Wailing and hurt, the anguished Potter stomps out of his tormenting ?family?, not before he has ballooned away Aunt Marge, only to find himself squeezing against the windows of the ?Knight? bus which snakes, shrinks, expands, brakes at hilariously high speeds through the already squeezed London roads.

On reaching the Leaky Cauldron, he isn?t as much amused by him being escaped-of the dreary consequences for using magic in muggle-land as he is by a prisoner who?s escaped the dreary confines of the prison of Azkaban. Known as Sirius Black, common lore has it that it was Black who sold off Potter?s parents to Lord Voldemort and that he?s broken away from Azkaban to finish off what he left?Harry Potter, which surely isn?t the best news for young Potter to start his third year at Hogwarts. And so unfolds Potter?s quest into his past with two more threads?one of his whippy smart buddy, Hermoine Granger?s inconsistent presence and another, of an execution of a innocent magical creature?both masterfully sewn in to lead to a hugely satiating climax.

Unlike its formulaic predecessors, the third Potter book was both denser and more character-and-dialogue driven and the new-found complexity and dexterity in the screen adaptation is certainly not going to draw in mad-after-hot-wheels-n-barbies youngsters in the same way as the last two films did. But Cuaron and Warner Bros. don't seem to care. Neither do I, for what I got was two hours of slickly-shot, intelligently-mounted wizard-thriller which might have somewhat failed to bring out the emotional nuances and undercurrents of its printed sibling in the hush-hush of stuffing in everything the book had to offer, but still ended up way more edgier, and way more enjoyable than the last two films put together.

Much oblivious of the absence of series' main villian, Lord Voldemort, the film in its first hour tries to grip with the quandaries and allays of Hogwarts, with some success but as it transmogrifies into a freewheeling thriller in the second half, the effect is numbing. For the purists, there's little to be zonked about and much to be cribbed about as even though the proceedings entertain, the much-needed ingredients to transport the viewer are mostly non-existent in the first half. For starters, the Quidditch (the much deservably famous game-on-broomsticks) which is the flesh, bone and blood of the whole series and particularly this very book (which had not one but three thoroughly enjoyable matches) finds a disgracefully restrained 5-minute entry on-screen.

Moreover, the Potter-Lupin conversations seem more to be dropped into the smooth narrative as an afterthought, which besides padding the hugely enjoyable Hogwarts antics, also poison the main point of the story (Potter's questionable past) to some extent. However, the film resurrects itself tremendously in the second half, both in the quality and the speed in execution of the mysterious element which goes into a freewheeling Hitchcock-sque mode. And Cuaron is hugely helped by his consistent cast and crew.

Since its impossible to now imagine Potter, Weasley and Granger without thinking about Radcliffe, Grint and Watson, for most part one takes them for granted and expect them to just ''deliver the lines''. But here, save for Grint, Radcliffe and Watson surprisingly do conjure up performances that make their respective characters both believable and tremendously enjoyable. While Watson's tone and body language has smoothened with her equally ironed tresses, one can't miss the dormant angst and fury of Potter in Radcliffe's eyes. The boy's also surprisingly composed in the scenes where he's asked to stretch his vocal-cords just that much more (which is more than thrice).

Even David Thewlis and Gary Oldman turn in such sincere performances as Professor Lupin and Sirius Black, its hard to imagine them outside the characters they play. Replacing Late Richard Harris, Michael Gambon as Dumbledore is just as efficient, if not as enigmatic while Alan Rickman carries on the histrionics as the stern Severus Snape with the same lucidity as he started (and yes I wasn't the only one rolling over the aisle with laughter as Rickman found himself in Longbottom's granny's dress). While the rest of the cast also turn in commendable performances, they are terribly restricted by the editor's scissors, and thus the effect of regular characters (including that of Hagrid, Dumbledore, McGonagall, Trelawney) and their interactions with Harry is quite blunted.

The production designer seems to be the most overworked here, as the film ''feels'' different right from the first shot-- be it the visibly more sinsiter confines of Hogwarts or the gloomy thunder-storms, rain-clouds, snow and sleet which fill up every available screen pixel, the eerie ''feel'' is actually instrumental in giving the film it's grip. The outlandish costumes are also thankfully missing for most part and the meticulously brought-to-life monstrous creatures like boggarts, dementors, werewolf and the hippogriff come across very convincingly, as do the amazingly well thought out Marauder's Map and the Time Turner which are sure to make anyone's jaws drop.

The acoustics are also stupendous and coupled with some fantastic cinematography, watching Harry perform the Patronus charm is as nail-biting as watching the Dementors sucking glee. The dialogues, particularly in crucial conversations, are devoid of any sentimenatlity whatsoever, and as pointed earlier, the director doesn't seem as emotionally convicted as Columbus. However, the regular sprinklings of much-needed humour was much welcome, and prevented the film to be too dark or morose internally.

All-in-all, an extremely well-made film that is somewhat scarred by its low emotional quotient (both when viewed in its entirety and when compared to the book) which make it more apt to be flowered with adjectives like ''dark'', ''edgy'', ''gripping'', ''mature'', ''visual treat'', ''scary''... rather than ''touching'' or ''poignant''. Obviously crippled by the screen-time, Cuaron's characters aren't as wholly fleshed (though they aren't pulse-less) to provoke immediate fanship from the uninitiated or even the die-hard Potter fans, but he more than makes it up by raising the bar of entertainment a few inches further in this film with its gripping content. Or probably this compliment is more for Rowling.

Whoever its for; at the end of the day, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban entertains all thanks to the neck-snapping second half, jaw-dropping visuals and refreshing performances