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Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Full Screen Edition) Customer Reviews (85 - 87 of 101 Reviews)

Disappointed Adult Potter Fan
As a Harry Potter purist, disappointed is the only word that comes to mind when I think of this 3rd movie. While the credits and Buckbeak were wonderful, there was so much left out (which is understandable when converting a book to movie) but so much was actually CHANGED!!! The visible appearance of the Hogwarts grounds - steps leading to Hagrid's home, along with the location and design of the Whomping Willow; and the Quidditch field was much darker and I believe not needed. Also, poor Crookshanks wasn't really honored for his brilliance in assisting Sirius and realizing that Scabbers was really a person AND if a simple spell could stop the Whomping Willow why would it be such a big deal as anyone could do it...missed the secret trigger and the storyline on why it was there!!!! Wouldn't it be more effective to have such dark things occurring in a beautiful place rather than a overgrown negative place? AND why did the Slytherin table move next to Griffindor????

While the actors did a great job, it was obvious that the kids are now much older than the role they are playing, but they did pull off the role that they were 13-years old. As someone else wrote, "the other kids were also more obviously grown up and less suited to the roles than they were in the previous films."

I was also disappointed that so much of the story line was actually change...including the Christmas Firebolt storyline, Harry receiving the permission slip to visit the village, the friendship depth of Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew, Remus Lupin and the Potters (which the movie never explained the creation of the Marauder's Map). Unfortunately after seeing how the Lord of the Rings was created so well and so accurately, there are very few movies or directors that could live up to that accuracies and this is one of them.

Curaron probably did do a "great" job of directing, but good directing does not make a good movie. While the movie visually was choppy and the transitions obvious!!! Hopefully, the Goblet of Fire will be more accurate and true! And, while I will stick to my hardback copies of the book (and looking forward to purchasing the next two) I will not purchase this DVD as I am so disappointed in Warner Brothers and Alfonso Curaron.

POA movie has the feeling of the book.
Although there were many changes and omission, (as in any dramatization) the third Harry Potter movie really caught the feeling of the book. It was fast paced, extremely magical and contained humor as well as darkness. As I own the HP series on CD, I know the books by heart. Following is a list of plusses and minuses.
plus:
- Dumbledore is more eccentric and fun loving than in previous two films.
- The magic bus was wonderful. I loved the addition of the talking head.
- The scenes, such as the inside of the leaky cauldron, blowing up the aunt, inside of the boy's dormatory, inside Lupin's office and the ride on the hippogryph are wonderful
- Although the book emphasizes it more, the movie portrays the pain and sorrow that Lupin lives with.
- Loved the biting book.
- a wonderful actor was chosen for Sirius Black (my favorite character in the books).

Minus
- Dumbledore is still not as multidimensional as I would like. Many places in the books, Dumbledore and Harry have a close unspoken relationship as they share the hidden joke when Dumbledore is talking to others.
- The relationships of James Potter and his friends. The closeness, sacrifice, etc. was almost left out. As Sirius says in the book "then you should have died, as we would have done for you".
- Sirius' recklessness and character were glossed over.
- In the movie, Harry seems to be more in control than in the books, where he is "walking with his eyes closed. Banging off the walls".
- Snape is still too nice in the movie.

Disappointing!!!!
I have read all 5 Harry Potter books more than once (most of them at least 3 times). J. K. Rowling has developed an outstanding series for children and adults alike with great plots, rich characters and details. Christopher Columbus directed the first two movies which stayed true to the books and were excellent. Maybe because he answered to his 12 yr old daughter at the time who was an avid fan. I have seen the third movie and I left extremely disappointed. They left out a lot of very important details like who made the map and the story about the four friends, Sirius sending the new broom at xmas and then it being taken away; just to give an example. This left the viewer (especially if you didn't read the book first) trying to fill in the gaps and to figure out what was going on. It also skipped around a lot, did not follow the order of the book. I will say that I truly enjoyed the development of the three main characters Harry, Hermione and Ron and I will go onto the further say that they need to hurry and make the other films because they won't be the same without the original actors. Daniel Radcliffe is Harry Potter. Overall, I would advise Harry Potter fans to wait for the DVD release of this movie instead of spending a lot of money at the theatre.

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