Rating: 5/5
Classification: PG
Year of release: 2004
Run-time: 2 hours 22 minutes
Director: Alfonso Cuaron
Cast: Daniel Redcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Robbie Coltrane
Genre: Adventure, Family, Fantasy
This review contains SPOILERS
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is the third Harry Potter movie and is about a convicted murderer Sirius Black (Gary Oldman) who has escaped from Azkaban prison with an intention to find and kill Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) as he begins his third year at Hogwarts. Considered by many fans to be the best movie in the series, while I like the Deathly Hallows movies better than the movie, it’s still easy to see why this movie is such a fan favourite. The heart and soul of this movie mostly lies on the beginning of the relationship between Harry and Sirius Black, of course for most of this movie we are led to believe that Sirius is a villain. However the surprise that Sirius is in reality Harry Potter’s Godfather makes us happy for Harry because we’ve known that Harry lost both his parents when he was one year old. It was very satisfying to see Harry finally have a father figure that cares about him and loves him like a son.
A big series defining aspect make their debut in this movie known as dementors which author J.K. Rowling based on her battle with depression. While the dementors aren’t technically evil in this movie like they are in later movies they never waste an opportunity to suck Harry’s soul when he encounters one. The appearance and stories about the existence about the dementors is perfect in every way, their first appearance in this movie on the Hogwarts Express is absolutely chilling the mere appearance of dementors effortlessly creates a presence of absolute dread. The entire room seems to stop dead in its tracks, the rain turns into ice and the characters start breathing out fog, and to top it off dementors make people they come in contact with relieve their most miserable memory or memories. Other scenes in this movie further emphasise how much of a danger dementors are when Harry encounters a Bogart during a Defence Against The Dark Arts class that turns into a dementor and the scene with Harry and Professor Lupin (David Thewlis) when the latter teaches Harry how to conjure a Patronus charm and how difficult it is to do so.
A big twist in this movie is that Ron’s (Rupert Grint) pet rat Scabbers turned out to be an Animagus for the entire twelve years that Scabbers has been with the Weasleys and turns out to be Peter Pettigrew (Timothy Spall). A mutual friend of James Potter, Sirius and Lupin, Peter Pettigrew also turned out to be responsible for the crimes Sirius was falsely convicted with, before fans saw this movie or read this book I’m sure no one in their right mind would think Scabbers was a murderer who sold the Potters to Lord Voldemort. Michael Gambon also makes his first appearance as Albus Dumbledore in this movie due to Richard Harris’ death I can’t really pick a favourite between the two actors. I definitely liked that Michael Gambon didn’t try to imitate Richard Harris and Michael just made the role his own instead.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban earns its place as one of my favourite movies in the series, once again expertly introducing interesting brand new characters and deepening the story of the returning characters as well as the ever so fascinating mythology of the series. Prisoner of Azkaban also subtly takes these movies and begins to slowly make it thematically darker and more mature as our main characters enter their teenage years.