The other thing that sells that scene and the movie as a whole is the acting, and there's no shortage of great performances here. David Thewlis is just wonderful as Lupin, perfectly embodying in every way the character that Rowling writes in her novels. Gary Oldman is expectedly wonderful as Sirius Black and his screen persona actually adds quite a lot to the film. Emma Thompson captures Professor Trelawney perfectly. And I was really taken with Michael Gambon's performance as Dumbledore, replacing Richard Harris. I expect this will not be a common or popular opinion, but I think it's a considerable improvement over Harris's performance. Harris was never enthusiastic about the role, and it seems that if it hadn't been for his granddaughter's threat to never speak to him again he would have turned the role down without a second thought. It's only by virtue of the fact that Richard Harris is a fantastic actor that even an autopilot performance was quite good. Gambon, on the other hand, really seems to be enjoying himself and he injects Dumbledore with a sort of quiet exuberance that was missing from Richard Harris's work.

But I would expect nothing less from such actors as these. The really big surprise here is Daniel Radcliffe. While always solid as Harry, he was never very impressive. But here something has changed. Maybe it's the growth spurt, maybe it's Cuaron's direction, maybe it's all the Sex Pistols CDs he was listening to in order to get into that troubled-youth mindset. Whatever the reason, Radcliffe's performance is infinitely better in this film than in either of the previous outings. Harry now has gravity and dimension, as well as that twinkle-in-the-eye that quietly reveals the cleverness missing from the other films. (Come to think of it, you can definitely chalk some of that up to Cuaron. Until now, the films had a tendency to represent Harry as a wide-eyed innocent little kid, but here he has finally become the mischief maker he is in the books.)

The rest of the returning cast continue their good work, though a few of them have little to do. Maggie Smith has all of two scenes and Rupert Grint provides little more than comic relief as Ron (but thankfully he isn't the clownish oaf he was turned into for the second movie). Alan Rickman gets a few juicy scenes and remains incredibly fun to watch (and the perfect incarnation of the Snape of the books), and Emma Watson just keeps getting better with each film.

With all this great stuff, the film does have one big detriment: the special effects, which are generally more in tune with the first film than the second. There's a CG dog that looks great and the dementors are wonderful, but there's also a pretty poorly executed werewolf (a shame, because it looks like it came from an interesting design) and Buckbeak (a hippogriff) never quite gels with the world around him. I understand that feathers can be really tricky to deal with, but I've seen better than this. Buckbeak should be sleek, yes, but not so sleek that he looks reptilian.

But that's not nearly enough to lower my opinion of the film as a whole. It's really quite wonderful, a de-Hollywoodized addition to the series from a director with a good sense of plotting and an unmeasurably vaster imagination than the A-list studio hack who had the controls in his hands before. It does away with all of the insipid dumbing down of the second film ("Oh, right, Phoenix tears have healing powers!"), completely avoids the redundant "Gee whiz!" shots of bewildered faces that took up half of the first film's running time, and is totally devoid of any syrupy sweetness (the medicine is fine on it's own and needs no help going down). This is also the first film of the series to adequately capture J.K. Rowling's sense of humor, which is a bit more subversive than Columbus's sensibilities. I really, really adored it. The bar has been set very, very high with this one; I'm not confident that Mike Newell will be up to the challenge on the next film, and it would be a dream too good to be true if Rowling looked at this one and said she wanted Cuaron back for The Order of the Phoenix. At this point I can't think of any other director who would be more perfect for the assignment.

I'm ecstatic right now...it'll have to be a very, very good year at the movies to keep this film out of my top ten when it's over.

John Williams also hit the ball out of the park on this one. Harry's theme and the "reflection on family" theme from the first two films (both highlighted in "Harry's Wondrous World" from the first album) have both been completely dropped in favor of the new "Window to the Past" theme, and I have no qualms about their absense. It's as if those themes are a remnant of Columbus's forced sweetness and the new theme (more beautiful than either of the other two by far) signals the arrival of real heart and soul. It also features some of his best action writing in quite some time, as well as an appropriately soaring theme for Buckbeak and that raucous "Knight Bus" cue that I just can't get enough of. It's a great score, and if it gets an Oscar nod Williams will have really earned the nomination.

Kirk

Thumbs up to the Weasley twins too. The scene where they give Harry the map is hilarious.

I always thought the first two movies were quite good. But they really pale in comparison to the third film, which is - forgive the pun - simply spellbinding.

Kirk you rule buddy, I'm seeing it tonight with a few family members (all my other friends arn't coming, the mother****ers)

Anyway, I'm pumped like no other.

I also didn't like the change to the Patronus light, nor to the Dementors (flying?). One other thing, I thought the Knight Bus was kind of dumb and long, they could have cut it to explain Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs (how could Lupin work the map anyways?)

quote:

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Originally posted by nightwing:
One other thing, I thought the Knight Bus was kind of dumb and long, they could have cut it to explain Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs (how could Lupin work the map anyways?)

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Actually, that's the main problem with complaints about what was cut from the book. If you lined up 100 fans and asked each of them what they thought should be cut and what deserved to stay, you would likely get 100 different answers.

The emotional thrust of the story and its mythical underpinnings were intact. Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and David Thewlis were outstanding, as were everyone else, in particular Alan Rickman, who finally has the chance to show a little more that he had the chance to in the previous entries. I particularly enjoyed the scene in the Shrieking Shack when Severus, Remus and Sirius confront each other. The dialogue is very different from what appears in the book, but the actors are so committed... and are clearly playing to aspects of the characters that would be revealed in The Order of the Pheonix. I also liked the scene in the hallway; I felt that Rickman and Thewlis really brought a sense of "You used to beat the s--t out of me every day after classes, but I know your secret!!!" "You may know my secret, but I still beat the s--t out of you every day after classes, Snivelus" to the whole proceeding.

I also agree that Cauron captured more of the feel of J.K. Rowling's books than Columbus did, and that an essential element of the books... that the protagonists are the age that they are... was much better communicated in this entry. The "boys will be boys" scene in the dorm room in which the boys are eating the beans that make them sound like animals is a good example. The cluttered, Altman-esque overlapping dialogue also contributes to this.

The sense of humor in this film was much more engaging and more in keeping with Rowling's work ("Room service..." the wizard in the Leaky Cauldron reading A Brief History of Time, etc.), and is much more endearing.

I thought Williams' score was outstanding. It is much more sophisticated and thickly textured than the previous two. Much of this is because the content of this book and film are more mature (let's face it, here's where the books start to get really good). I love the medieval sound he added to many of the cues.

I also think that his use of "Double Trouble" was brilliant (I love the lyrics, adapted from Macbeth, Act IV, Scene I), and that his new "history of Harry" theme is something that will probably be more flexible than the "family" motif adapted from "Harry's Wondrous World" in the first two films.

In fact, while under ordinary circumstances I would have been a little annoyed at how little material has been carried over from the previous two scores, I have to say that the quality of what is there is so good I can't really complain.

While this album is much better at encompassing most of the important cues from the film than Chamber of Secrets was (Quidditch, Year Two?), there still are a few interesting bits missing.

There is an autoharp motif that is associated with the Marauder's Map, but also appears as Harry and Hermione enter the Shrieking Shack and when Pettigrew is revealed... it also closes the film. Buckbeak's second flight is edited out of "Finale" for some reason, and the end credits is slightly shorter on the album than in the film (whether they were lengthened for the film or shortened for the album, I don't know).