Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkeban

[Gengi]

Took the kids to see it, bloody good film although my daughter did fall asleep about 3/4 of the way through.
Go and see it even if you don't like 'Harry Potter the phenomenon' it's still a pretty damn good movie.

Later

 

[leggy]

I went with 4 of my mates. 2 fell asleep.

As far as films go it was fairly average. I enjoyed it though (TELL NO ONE).

 

[Mobius]

I thought it was pretty good. Didn't realize that was Lenny Henry.
Do you think the 4th and 5th movie will be longer?

 

[Ukle]

Good film but they really need to think about making each book into 2 films. There is too much detail in book 3 onwards for just one film without missing a lot of what is going on...

Also they cant make the films longer as kids dont have that long attention spans... and after all they are the intended auidence

 

[itcheh]

I went with 4 of my mates. 2 fell asleep.

As far as films go it was fairly average. I enjoyed it though (TELL NO ONE).

Leggy - you're going soft - I thought you'd slag it

As it happens I quite enjoyed it too ... thought the CGI Hippogryph was fantastic

 

[Yoni]

. I enjoyed it though (TELL NO ONE).

hehehheehheheh up for some bribery

 

[peanut]

As a fan of HP, I was really looking forward to going to see the movie. Left though with mixed feelings. Yes it's a good movie, special effects were pretty good, with the exception of Remus Lupin in his transformed state which I thought could have been done a little better. (Yes I am aware that werewolves don't really exist, so portraying them is entirely upto the discretion of whoever it is who animates them cgi style). The big letdown for me was the absence of the storyline. Now I know that the book is of course going to be a lot more descriptive, and for obvious reasons, movies cannot be made which follow the books they are based on word for word, otherwise we'd be sat in cinemas for hours on end, but I just felt it sacrificed a lot of the finer points of the storyline in order to cram in more visual effects. Granted, in today's film industry, visual effects and cgi are paramount, and in most of the recent films I've seen, it has been amazing and worked in the films favour. For example, LOTR trilogy, although Tolkien's novels are works of genius in literary form, when put onscreen, they relied almost entirely on cgi. Day After Tomorrow again relied almost entirely on cgi, and in all honesty lacked much storyline. However, the main audience of the Harry Potter films (and the books) are supposed to be children, therefore I would have thought they'd be more interested in the fantasy and magic behind the stories, rather than big special effects. Yes ok has to be visual, but should, I believe have been more balanced.
I agree with whoever it was that said book 4 onwards would have to be split. To me, Prisoner of Azkaban isn't even a thick book, but still floundered due to parts of the story being missed out.
End of rant!!!

 

[Lazarus]

not a real HP fan - never read any of the books. But I did watch all th movies and took the kids yesterday to watch the latest one.

Thoroughly enjoyable - even my 4 year old sat through the whole film, so it must have done something right. However, there were certain bits that were a bit "light" and could have been given a little more screen time.

 

[Arbaal]

Harry Potter = The plague.

Aye ^^

 

[harebear]

My nextdoor neighbours son done the animation on the movie, found out yesterday.. he also worked on Lotr 3

 

[Conchabar]

My nextdoor neighbours son done the animation on the movie, found out yesterday.. he also worked on Lotr 3

poke :touch:

 

[harebear]

amagad puss in boots, so fucking kute!

 

[Zenistentialist]

YEh

It was an enjoyable enough film whose character sresembled those found in ROwlings writing, but that movie wasn't by any stretch of the imagination "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" The book was thrilling and compelling, it brought tears and awe. The movie was funny, action-ish, and decently thought out. Oh and note to director

-Don't change school headmasters in the third and pivotal chapter in a Septuplet-

Down with the new Dumbledore

-Fanks Mateys.

 

[Doh_boy]

-Don't change school headmasters in the third and pivotal chapter in a Septuplet-

Down with the new Dumbledore

-Fanks Mateys.

Considering the bloke died they didn't have much choice. And I like Micheal Gambon, always seems like a nice bloke and his dumbledore is good imho.

 

[Lazarus]

Considering the bloke died they didn't have much choice. And I like Micheal Gambon, always seems like a nice bloke and his dumbledore is good imho.

Personally, I would have preferred to see Ian McKellan in that role. I think he would have portrayed it better.

 

[Covenant]

Personally, I would have preferred to see Ian McKellan in that role. I think he would have portrayed it better.

Good call, although he was probably tied up in a feather boa with Patrick Stewart and, therefore, unavailable to star.

As previously noted, I left this film with mixed feelings too. The storyline was there, but it was fragmented. This is acceptable to a degree because of the nature of films - some things have to be altered to make them viable for production.

However, there was a lot of stuff omitted or changed outright:

Spoiler

The most glaring omission, in my opinion, was how Lupin knew how to work the Marauder's Map - it's key to the storyline, which was also changed to make Harry the person that discovered Peter Pettigrew. You lose some suspense from the final scene because of that

and

Spoiler

The very beginning, where you see Harry using magic in his bedroom to wind up the Dursleys - this doesn't even fit with the "no magic out of school" rule that permeates the story!

Yes, people have probably already seen it, but I'll use spoilertags anyway

In all, I'd rate it 3.5/5 - good film, good direction, but the plot has been modified too far away from the original intent for it to make it as enjoyable as the book.

 

[Danya]

Does Harry get it on with Hermione yet?

 

[Gengi]

Does Harry get it on with Hermione yet?

Yes, but you miss most of it as they are hiding in the invisibility cloak



Later

 

[kanonfodda]

It was an enjoyable enough film whose character sresembled those found in ROwlings writing, but that movie wasn't by any stretch of the imagination "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" The book was thrilling and compelling, it brought tears and awe. The movie was funny, action-ish, and decently thought out. Oh and note to director

-Don't change school headmasters in the third and pivotal chapter in a Septuplet-

Down with the new Dumbledore

-Fanks Mateys.

I don't know if Peter O'Toole is still alive or not, but he would have been the best as a replacementb for richard Harris

 

[Stimpy]

I don't know if Peter O'Toole is still alive or not, but he would have been the best as a replacementb for richard Harris

He was probably to busy filming Troy, though he would have been a perfect replacement.

 

[ReActor]

I'm not keen on this idea of splitting up each book into 2 films. That would mean there would be just too many goddamn films! I mean, Christ, in the end there will be 7 books. Imagine if there were 14 bloody Harry Potter films! Daniel Radcliffe would be about 25 by the time the last one was being made.

Splitting the story up didn't work very well with Kill Bill or the last 2 Matrix films, and it wouldn't work with these either. It's far better for films to be concise in plot; otherwise they end up being bloated, lazy and sprawling.

Supposedly the 4th book will be 2 films, but it doesn't have to be (and shouldn't).

 

[Yoni]

I think that the fourth and the fifth book have to be split as there are areas of the plot which just can not be removed. Maybe they should be filmed at the same time (each half that is) and then put on at the cinema at the same time. So you can see part one one night and part two the next or you can do a marathon all in one day.

However if parts are missed out from these books films later may suffer as some of the inncidents which occur are not vital to the plot of that book but vital to the continuity of the overall plot.

Spoiler

For example the lack of a better explanation as to the Peter Petigrew / Sirus Black relationship I believe will hamper the plot of the story as a whole later on

 

[tRoG]

Spoiler

They just didn't explain the whole Sirius/Lupin/Pettigrew/Potter/Snape circle thing very well.

The film wasn't anything outstanding. I'd probably just rate it decent.

Spoiler

Oh, and who the hell created a werewolf to look like that?

 

[Nightchill]

It was a pleasant couple of hours. Made all the better for the 5 year old infront who, at one of the monster scenes, bawled "mommy I want to go home!" and started crying.

 

[mank!]

I saw it today. I think the best bit was the fact I was one of four people in the cinema watching it.

Anyway, I enjoyed it much more than the last two films and the plot was much darker and I quite enjoyed the direction. Cuaron has a better eye for a shot than Columbus it seems.

Spoiler

The end felt a bit rushed. One minute Harry wants to kill Sirius and then in the next scene he's going to live with him. I assume there was something inbetween that was filmed but was cut due to time restrictions or something because it's really quite dodgy otherwise.

Gambon did a decent enough job as Dumbledore, sounded far too like Richard Griffiths though. I also kept imagining Steve Coogan as Lupin.

 

[leggy]

I wasn't sure about Gambon's dumbledor. I thought he came across a bit too sarcastic and too small. I like MG but think he was miscast.

 

[mank!]

I much preferred Richard Harris, he was perfect for that role. I don't think it's that Gambon isn't upto it, just that he's got a great man to replace.