Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
I went to see Harry Potter on Friday night, which was opening night. It was excellent. You can really tell that this was filmed by a new director. There was a darker, more sinister feel to the film. Even Harry, himself, has more of an edge. He’s no longer the sweet, do-gooding boy, but an angry adolescent who wants revenge on those who caused his parents’ death. But the edge works. It’s the third book where the story itself becomes a darker tale complete with soul-sucking demontors, the discovery of a deceipt that led to innocent deaths (that of Harry’s parents), and sadly, (spoiler alert!) an ending where an innocent man still has to run and hide because his name cannot be cleared. This is much different than the endings of the first two films, where there is a battle of sorts, the good guys win, and the bad guy dissolves into dust or explodes into pieces. Even Harry questions this: “What difference did it make?” he asks. Dumbledore tells him - “you uncovered the truth; you saved a innocent man from a terrible fate.” A hard lesson to learn for Harry: sometimes life isn’t fair.
Another thing I really liked about the movie was Hermione’s moxy; she’s less of a know-it-all class pet, and more of an strong-willed overachiever. The film has her taking charge and leading the action. She goes as far as socking one to the class bully - square in the face. A good punch, if I do say so myself. And it feels a bit like grrl-power, as she is the first in the group to actually get violent.
As fan of the books, I could follow along with the movie’s plot very well. But I wonder if some of the plots points were a bit too rushed for those who were seeing this for the first time. It seemed that, sometimes, more explaining was due, but it never came.
And finally, I have to ask: What was with the birds? My husband pointed this out early-on and from then on, and then I noticed it quite a bit. In every single scene, there was a bird (and occasionally a bat or a butterfly). Yes, every scene! Was this some sort of symbolism that went over my head? Just wondering…
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I have never read the books and saw the first movie and only half of the second movie but was able to follow along very well. I was a bit freaked out at how weird all the “followers” acted in the theater after the show. They waited and (since I was with a “follower” I had to wait too) wanted to see the credits until they were completely over in case there was something else to happen. They were talking as if they were on speed about how excited they were and did so-and-so read this book and this and that… it was kind of weird to me but all in all I give the film 2 thumbs up.