Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban [2004]

For the third film in the cinema incarnation of J.K. Rowling's franchise, the template is settled enough to need some stylistic shaking-up. Again, we open with a scene that finds Harry [Daniel Radcliffe] being given a hard time by his horrible step-family and magically getting his own back [by inflating a nasty aunt into a balloon and having her float away – a Dahl-like touch] and then skip over the mix of suburban misery-and-magic to get the hero into his proper home, the environs of Hogwarts. Again, a plot that brings on a new teacher who turns out to have something to hide, fills in a bit more of the backstory about Harry's dead parents and their murder, lets the continuing characters grow up a bit [Ron and Hermione get to hold hands and argue more], spotlights guest turns [Emma Thompson – though Julie Christie's only-in-longshot bit screams more to come in the DVD 'deleted scenes'], and requires Harry to show magic muscle in the finale.

Alfonso Cuaron is obviously a much more interesting director than Chris Columbus, and the film has a 'darker' look, with much more made of the weather – rain, mostly, but with a scene in the snow to allow for the old invisible man footprints gag – and general horror movie business as two new characters, Remus Lupin [David Thewlis] and Sirius Black [Gary Oldman], turn out to be different varieties of werewolf [cursed and voluntary] and even get into a CGI creature-scrap. As in the second episode, the kids are the weakest element, which isn't helped by the fact that Rowling doesn't make them central – even Harry's big magic stunt and Hermione's time-backtracking for the finale hardly affect the outcome. Oldman, Thewlis and Timothy Spall, as a rat-faced former rat, are more engaging performers than the kids and the tangle of their backstory [Oldman is the eponymous escaped prisoner – supposedly a baddie who is out to kill Harry and betrayed his parents but actually an unjustly-accused goodie] is more interesting than what's going on with the children. Newcomer Michael Gambon, allowing in some of his Irish accent to homage Richard Harris, upstages everyone with almost no business, while Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman and Robbie Coltrane just trot out the schtick they laid down in the earlier films.

It whizzes along without the dead spots of the first two films and reins in Rowling's sometimes overly-childish humour. Some winning magical inventions [the map which gives away everyone's current position] are plot points rather than frills and at least try to be scary, even if the omnipresent Dementors are just familiar floating faceless rags. Buckbeak, the hippogriff, is a new high water mark for CGI creatures, convincing as a bird, a horse and a hybrid and not nearly as irritating as the written-out elf from the last film – though it is impressive rather than winning.
KIM NEWMAN

First published in this form here.

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