Whadya know, another movie review. God forbid I have a blog entry that isn’t a movie review.
Anyway, the movie: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Guess what? Awesome. I can’t find the words for how awesome it is. Didding pont snark awesome. See? That’s the best I can do.
Now, before I go on, I need you to keep one thing in mind: if you’re one of those crazy stalker fans who bitch and moan like little children when your favorite book-to-movie conversion isn’t dead honkin’ flawless, guess what? Shut the goddamn up, because I don’t want to hear it. Did they take a lot of liberties with the adaptation? Monkey crap yes. But that means nothing. This is an excellent friggin’ movie, so clam it before I beat you to death with a dead baby. Wow, I’m really hostile tonight.
So yeah, the movie. First off, there’s a new director in town (though the same old predictable John Williams score refuses to relent). His name is Alfonso Cuarón, and holy crap did he get the Harry Potter universe right. Check this: he actually made Hogwarts look like it was from bloody England and not friggin’ California like in the first two movies. That in itself was enough to earn my approval, but then he had to go and do all these other crazy things that made me swoon over a man like never before. In particular, I loved his idea of what magic sounds like. I can’t quite pin it down, but it’s like some kind of pingly dingle snap. I swear that was descriptive to me. You’ll see what I mean when you see it. You’re going to see it.
Our new buddy, Alf, did a lot of other really cool stuff that I’ll let you discover on your own, suffice to say that you’ve never seen a Quidditch scene like this. Actually, the whole movie plays out precisely the way a real stalker fan would want it to play out, accuracy issues notwithstanding. Azkaban is, after all, when the series really takes off and matures into the dark, gripping story we know and love today, and Alf’s brilliant directing does it all the justice it deserves.
There were quite a few corners that had to be cut, story-wise. Some were small and insignificant, and obviously necessary to cram the thing into a two hour film. Some weren’t quite so small. For example, don’t expect to find out who Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs are. Oh, and the Sirius in the movie actually turns out to be Darth Vader’s father. That’s right, folks. Sirius Black is now a midi-chlorian.
But accuracy issues aside, Cuarón has put together a Harry Potter movie the way Harry Potter movies should always be made from here on out. Try not to sweat the inconsistencies, and just take it for what it is, and you’ll walk out of the theater aroused in ways you never thought a British 13-year-old could catalyze.