Prisoner of Azkaban - by Arislyn on 17:49 17 Jun 2004
Runt and I saw this last week and, I must say, I liked it!
At first, I wasn't going to go see it simply because the movies never live up to the books, in my opinion. And, so far, I hadn't been that impressed with the first two movies. I'm not saying they were bad. They were okay...just not great. However, NPR (National Public Radio) did a piece on HP:PoA that peaked my interest.
They said that a new director was handling PoA and he had made the movie darker and less fanciful than the first two. After hearing that, we figured that we'd give it a try.
I liked PoA much better than Sorcerer's Stone or Chamber of Secrets. PoA is, indeed, a bit darker in feeling but not so much so that it is oppressive or even really scary. It just feels more...realistic?...without loosing the magic of Rowling's world. In fact, there is still a lot of fancifulness and fun to the movie. They did a great job with the dementors, making them creepy without being so frightening as to give children nightmares. Buckbeak was wonderfully done. He actually looked like a creature that could well exist, not a hodge-podge of parts. And the boggart scene was a scream! Alan Rickman in old ladies clothing is far funnier than it should be....
Speaking of Rickman, he did a great job as Snape. Heh! But, hey...I may be a bit biased. I like Rickman and Snape is one of my favorite characters in the books. (George and Fred Weasley are my absolute favorites, though.) Gary Oldman did a good job of playing Sirius Black. He was convincing as a madman right up until the end. Even then, you could still see the touch of madness that Azkaban left in the character. More bias on my part, though. Oldman is one of my favorite actors.
Like always, they cut out parts of the book in order to make the movie a reasonable length. Most of what they cut wasn't really necessary to understand the story, though Runt and I agreed that we would've liked to have seen more explanation about the Marauders (James Potter's group of friends when he was at Hogwarts.) The thing is, I can't recall how much about them was revealed in PoA and how much was revealed in later books. So, it could be that they didn't leave out much at all...though I have a nagging feeling that something was left out.
At any rate, it was fun film and something that you should definitely take the kids to see.
Runt and I saw this last week and, I must say, I liked it!
At first, I wasn't going to go see it simply because the movies never live up to the books, in my opinion. And, so far, I hadn't been that impressed with the first two movies. I'm not saying they were bad. They were okay...just not great. However, NPR (National Public Radio) did a piece on HP:PoA that peaked my interest.
They said that a new director was handling PoA and he had made the movie darker and less fanciful than the first two. After hearing that, we figured that we'd give it a try.
I liked PoA much better than Sorcerer's Stone or Chamber of Secrets. PoA is, indeed, a bit darker in feeling but not so much so that it is oppressive or even really scary. It just feels more...realistic?...without loosing the magic of Rowling's world. In fact, there is still a lot of fancifulness and fun to the movie. They did a great job with the dementors, making them creepy without being so frightening as to give children nightmares. Buckbeak was wonderfully done. He actually looked like a creature that could well exist, not a hodge-podge of parts. And the boggart scene was a scream! Alan Rickman in old ladies clothing is far funnier than it should be....
Speaking of Rickman, he did a great job as Snape. Heh! But, hey...I may be a bit biased. I like Rickman and Snape is one of my favorite characters in the books. (George and Fred Weasley are my absolute favorites, though.) Gary Oldman did a good job of playing Sirius Black. He was convincing as a madman right up until the end. Even then, you could still see the touch of madness that Azkaban left in the character. More bias on my part, though. Oldman is one of my favorite actors.
Like always, they cut out parts of the book in order to make the movie a reasonable length. Most of what they cut wasn't really necessary to understand the story, though Runt and I agreed that we would've liked to have seen more explanation about the Marauders (James Potter's group of friends when he was at Hogwarts.) The thing is, I can't recall how much about them was revealed in PoA and how much was revealed in later books. So, it could be that they didn't leave out much at all...though I have a nagging feeling that something was left out.
At any rate, it was fun film and something that you should definitely take the kids to see.