Author: Snugglecub

Cast Images

Character Posters

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Film number three, and the story is starting to really pick up.  It begins to delve into the history behind the main villain, Voldemort.  The first two movies were all about establishing characters and locations.  In The Sorcerer’s Stone, he tries to come back and fails.  In The Chamber of Secrets, he tries to come back and fails.  But here, Voldemort isn’t trying another scheme to come back.  Instead, we learn a bit about what he was like, who his followers were, and who was opposing him.  We find out a little more about Harry’s parents and their friends, and that is what makes this movie so cool.

One of the most interesting, and I might say well-acted, scenes in the movie was the one where Snape confronts Lupin and Black in the Shrieking Shack.  There is a reason Gary Oldman, playing Serius Black, is widely considered one of the best actors of his age.  And Alan Rickman was great as Professor Snape.  One of the coolest choices Rickman made in his performance was when Lupin turns into a wolf.  At first, when Snape emerges from the tunnel, he is confronting the children, but as soon as he becomes aware of the werewolf, watch what he does.  He throws his arms out and interposes himself between the children and the dangerous creature.  I love that his first instinct is to protect the kids.  David Thewlis, was perfectly cast as Professor Lupin, and Timothy Spall’s performance as Peter Pettigrew was so delightfully pathetic.  And yes, I even liked Emma Thompson as the slightly daft Professor Trelawney.

And the acting from the film’s three leads, Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson, just keeps getting better.  The themes in the movie were darker and more adult than they had been in the previous films, and the trio did such a great job of keeping up with the more mature nature of the evolving plot.  They were great.  Also their on-screen chemistry just seemed to be getting tighter and tighter.  And lest I forget, I have to mention the addition of Michael Gambon to the cast.  Harris may have been a great actor, but I feel he was wrong for the part of Dumbledore.  Gambon brought some missing qualities to the character in a wonderful way.  He was confident, commanding, and even imposing when necessary.

One of the things I loved about this third installment of the franchise the most was how the aesthetics of the Harry Potter world were given a much needed modern makeover.  Nowhere was this change more evident than in the character of Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic.  Here, he appropriately looked like he belonged in the 1990s and not the 1790s.

Then there were the Dementors.  Talk about terrifying things in a movie that is still mostly geared toward children.  These things would have really scared me when I was a kid.  They were just black, vaguely humanoid shapes that floated about, wraiths whose tattered robes fluttered like tentacles, even when there was no wind.  Such a great design!

OK, now on with the little details about the plot that didn’t sit right with me, and there weren’t many.  Rapid-fire style.  Flitwick doesn’t have any idea how to conduct a choir.  And if this is a start of year feast, when did the student choir have any time to rehearse their performance?  Parvati Patil’s Jack in the box clown was more terrifying than the snake.  Harry’s assault on Draco and his goons is ridiculous.  Harry is under a cloak.  You can’t throw a snowball if you are under a blanket.  If a Boggart takes the form of a Dementor, does he actually acquire the powers and abilities of a Dementor as well?  I would say not.  Otherwise Lupin would have turned into a werewolf when he saw the image of the moon in his classroom.  During their fight with the Whomping Willow, there is absolutely no way Hermione could have picked Harry up by the shirt, let alone perched unsteadily on a branch moving that quickly, lift him into the air, carry him with her, and accurately throw him into the tunnel.  Nope… Not buying that one.

Top 10 Favorite Parts

1. Aunt Marge blows up and floats away like a balloon.
2. Lupin’s worst fear, represented by the Boggart, is the full moon.  Foreshadowing!
3. Lupin’s touching conversations with Harry on the bridge and in the forest.
4. The Dangerous quidditch game in the rain, and that it was against Hufflepuff, not Slytherin
5. Trelawney tells Hermione she isn’t cut out for divination.
6. Trelawney goes into a real trance and utters a true prophecy.
7. Hermione scares Draco senseless and then punches him in the face.
8. The entire scene inside the Shrieking Shack.
9. Snape protecting the children from the werewolf.
10. After the time-turner adventure, Dumbledore saying “Did what?  Good night.”

Cast Images

Character Posters

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

The second installment is, in my opinion better than the first for a number of reasons.  First, the story got a little darker than the first film.  It got a little more mature.  It retained its whimsical nature, but added a touch of weight and a noticeable amount of emotional heaviness.  Second, there was more actual magic, which, after all, is why we’ve all come to see the show.  There were more spells and more fantastic visual effects.  Third, the acting skills of the three main child actors, Daniel Radcliff, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson, were markedly improved.

The tone and the visuals were decidedly darker than the first film, which was all for the better, especially for the adults in the audience.  The magic was more creepy and even the visuals were darker.  But here, we have Ginny Weasley being possessed by an evil memory recorded in a magical diary, writing on the walls with blood.  And then there was the Basilisk, a giant evil snake trying to murder children

Now, I have to applaud the three main actors.  They were great.  I think Radcliff showed the most improvement.  He seemed much more comfortable in the role, and was a lot less… nervous when delivering his lines.  He was a lot more confident, and there was a sense of graveness and weight to his performance.  Again, Grint did a great job, even though a lot of his performance in this film was just him being scared of one thing or another.  But his frightened, squeaky, high-pitched voice was actually funny and made me chuckle to myself.  But while Emma Watson was better here than in the first film, she still had a moment or two where her lines had an awkwardness in them that catch my attention every time. 

The first movie was all about introducing and establishing the characters.  Here were get to develop them and see them grow into fully fledged characters.  The three leads, not to mention the entire cast, both child-actors and adults alike, did great.  My favorites, aside from the three, were Alan Rickman playing Snape, Maggie Smith as McGonagall, Jason Isaacs as Lucius Malfoy, and Gemma Jones as Madam Pomfrey.  Jones had a small role, but I loved her delivery.  Who am I kidding?  The whole cast was great.  But there were also a few new characters that were important to the plot, like Kenneth Branagh as Gilderoy Lockhart, and Toby Jones, who voiced the entirely CGI character of Dobby the House Elf.  And yes, the CGI on Dobby was an improvement on the CGI in the first film.

But that’s not to say the film was perfection.  Really quickly.  The pipes the basilisk was moving through must have been gigantic!  And he would have to have been moving around as silently as a ghost.  The Phoenix was a huge deus ex machina, having the exact powers Harry needed after his fight with the basilisk and the memory of Tom Riddle, like healing tears, and being able to carry heavy loads. Why did Mr. and Mrs. Weasley send all their children onto platform 9 ¾, except for Ron and Harry, then fail to notice that they had been left behind?  None of the teachers ever noticed the crumpled piece of paper in petrified Hermione’s hand?  The level of coincidence that saved every basilisk victim from death was staggering.  And it was also very convenient that Professor Sprout was growing Mandrakes, the very thing that could cure petrification.  And Lucius did not present Dobby with clothes.  He gave his servant something to hold for him.  He was not giving him clothes as a gift to keep.

But despite all that, I really liked the movie.  The visuals were awesome, the plot, while incredibly contrived at times, was fun and often clever.  The score was exciting, and the sets and costumes were spot-on.  It was darker than the first film, but still not too dark for a younger audience.  It was a worthy follow up to The Sorcerer’s Stone.

TOP 10 FAVORITE PARTS

1. Our introduction to Arthur Weasley
2. Ron’s EAT SLUGS spell backfires.
3. McGonagall explains the history of the Chamber of Secrets
4. Lockhart removes the bones from Harry’s arm.
5. The Dueling Club
6. Harry and Ron infiltrate the Slytherin common room.
7. The Swarm of Spiders attack Harry and Ron
8. Lockhart tries to escape Hogwarts and is exposed as a fraud
9. Moaning Myrtle talks about her death.
10. Harry stabs the diary and it bleeds ink, destroying Tom Riddle.