Harry Potter and the... Finally a great movie!

Having just seen the movie, the second paragraph needed a potential spoiler warning. I do agree tho.

Great movie. Pacing was a little frenetic, but overall I loved every little bit of it. The actual film craft was well executed this time, with beautiful scenery and tight direction. During any dementor scene (esp. the lake one), I couldn’t wipe a stupid-ass grin off my face. Of course, I’m a HP fanboy, so my word doesn’t count for much.

But I can say that I wasn’t offended by any of the book changes at all, and the darker tone works wonders for the series.

I’m not a Potter fan, but this was a good movie. I got more of the sense that this was the world, everyone knows how things work, and we had to keep up rather than have each magical thingy gawked and guffawed over in wonder-of-it-all mode.

I fell asleep during Chamber of Secrets too.

One nit to pick: why were there pumpkins in the springtime?

Also, according to Popbitch:

When Alfonso Cuaron signed up to direct Harry
Potter 3 he had to sign a contract not to swear
on set in front of the child actors. So instead
he resorted to swearing only in Spanish.
Consequently, Hogwarts pupils are all fluent in
Spanish curses, and even started calling the
director “Pincho Poncho”. Which translates
as “The Cock Alfonso.”

I really didn’t mind the pacing of the first two films.

I had originally seen the first two movies before picking up all the books, so that probably had a lot to do with it. It was nice, though, to have a visual reference to imagine the rest of the story evolving and growing.

My girlfriend and I are so excited to see this.

And always has been. I still remember his review of “Sid & Nancy” on a local “Siskel & Ebert” clone he was on in the early 80’s:

“This movie is about two things I hate; drugs and punks.”

As for Mr. Potter… This was an excellent film. It did drag in the middle, and the cuts began to become a little frenetic, although the director did his best to cover it with the scenic transitions. In the end the pacing reminded me of a Cameron film… a little boring in the middle, but then, just as you’re getting wrestless, the action begins.

But beautiful, lyrical, and well acted in a way that Chris Columbus will never be able to match.

I actually fell asleep during Troy.

Saw it last night with teh family, and liked it a lot. MUCH more than the first two movies. (I’ve read all the books, and loved 'em–especially 3-5).

The director made some interesting choices in what to cut/not to cut, and I agreed with most of them, I guess, but the one thing that did bother me was:

SPOILER!

…not revealing at the end, to Harry, the identity of the mapmakers’ nicknames. Those nicknames were not just tied in to a crucial part of the story–the animagi–but it, to me, just had particular emotional resonance, in the book, that this was the map of his father and his friends, that he had inherited a piece of his father’s life. It seemed like it would have been a very easy scene to add, and both my daughter and I were both expecting it during the final scene between Harry and Lupin–it just seemed a really strange omission. And David Thewlis was great as Lupin, btw—made me realize I haven’t seen him around in any movies in forever…

I do wish they didn’t make Draco into quite the obvious wimp bully that he is in this flick. He was much more straightforwardly malicious in the first two films, and in the parts where the now older actor is allowed to be, you can see he can do it quite well.

Helllllloooooo special edition!

Helllllloooooo special edition![/quote]

Latest Time magazine has an article about the movie. In it I remember reading they made almost very cut before filming began, which means not many extra scenes added for DVD.

(Spoiler tag still applies)

This, in addition to the history between the four and Snape (and particularly between James Potter and Snape).

Actually there was an overall lack of Alan Rickman that really bothered me.

I’m not sure if it was because I had read this thread before seeing the movie, or because I had read the books before seeing this movie (as opposed to the previous two films); but I took great issue with the frenetic pacing that was contained. I think they could have slowed down the pace a bit in some places.

Scenes like the Quidditch game could have been reworked. Quidditch was not at all a focus except for that scene and a reference to the game in Snape’s Dark Arts class. That was it. They could have easilyi re-written a new Dementors encounter that took up less time, but still held the essence of the scene.

Agreed with the problems with Gambon. Dumbledore has always seemed very complacent (though clearly always thinking) and serious-minded when necessary.

I also didn’t like that the movie followed what I thought was a major mistake in the book, and that’s to give hardly focus on the Time Turner. If I hadn’t read the book, I would have thought that was completely thrown in out of knowhere.

I have read the books, re-read the books, and re-read the books again. Hell, I just finished re-reading the series last week and may well start it up again tomorrow. Having said that: I loved the movie. It wasn’t perfect, and it skipped a lot of stuff that was, in Ron’s words, bloody brilliant. But, on the whole - the scene near the end with the patronus made me a bit watery, like it does in the book - and that’s really what matters. I just wish there was more more more - I could have watched six hours of that story with that cast.

Strangely, I still like the second one better. I think it’s Tom Riddle that does it. I like having the protaganist and antaganist confront each other and do something more than fight. Reminds me of Magneto and Xavior sitting down to play chess in the park.

I haven’t read the books and saw the first two films on DVD only. Went last night and I think this the very best one so far. The filming is far more dynamic. The scene in the hallway where Harry’s tracking someone and then Snape shows up was brilliantly done with light and shadow. There were a lot of great scenes like that throughout the movie.

It was kind of nice to have Gary Oldman not be the focus of the movie as soon as he steps into the frame too. I think he’s a great actor but he tends to rule the movies he’s in and he didn’t do that in this one which was a nice change.

Anyway, story-wise, filmmaking-wise and acting-wise…this is my favorite of the three by far.

–Dave

I saw this last night. Like Dave, I had only seen the first two on DVD, so my comparison of the three might be somewhat unfair. (I also read all three books, although this was the last one of the books I read because I got annoyed with the series.)

I thought the third movie was far and away the best of the three. The darker tone works really well. Having the kids be a little older also helps. The story was also more complex, the characters more shaded and emotional (the budding relationship between Ron and Hermione, in particular, is done well), and visually this movie was much, much better than the previous two (both in terms of shot quality, and use of camera movement and effects). The first two movies were mildly entertaining, but this one gets a big thumbs-up from me. I’m really bummed the director didn’t stay on for another movie or two.

I think Dean hit it right on the head: the first two movies were just scene after scene of eyes-wide, gee-whiz-isn’t-this-magic-fanciful type stuff. This movie was less a bunch of magic loosely connected by a story, and more a story that happens to take place in a realm of magic.

Is it worth going to see the IMAX version of this as opposed to the normal one?

I didn’t see it at an IMAX theater, but here are my two thoughts:

  1. The movie is visually pretty cool, so all things being equal, it would benefit from a bigger screen.

  2. If a movie isn’t shot with IMAX in mind, it often looks worse on an IMAX screen. I saw The Matrix in IMAX, for example, and it looked like crap. I don’t know whether HPATPOA (awesome!) was shot for IMAX or not.

HPATPOA? Forgive my acronym ignorance, but what does that stand for?

The movie under discussion: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

And yeah, saw it last night, and yeah, thought it was the best of the three. Whoever said this is a story that happens to take place in a world of magic, as opposed to a bunch of nifty scenes of magic loosely connected by a story, nailed it dead-on.

I saw it in an IMAX theater, but I think it’s the same 35MM cut everyone else sees – I think the only major difference you’ll find is that the IMAX theaters usually have awesome surround sound systems.

My main motivation for seeing at the particular theater I did was because they had assigned seating; I didn’t have to worry about fighting off lines of Potter fans to get a decent seat. :-)

[size=1]edit: took out repeat answer about the acronym. [/size]