First Things First…
As with the first two movies in the series, I’ve seen this a few times over the years.
The thing that stood out most in the past is that it’s so different stylistically. With Alfonso Cuaron taking over as director from Chris Columbus, that’s no surprise.
I also remember that a lot gets left out from the book. And like any diehard Harry Potter fan, of course that bothers me to some degree. But in fairness, a lot of times there are good reasons for the omissions. This can still be a great movie, even if it leaves out some of the stuff I love.
8 Things I Like
8. The Whomping Willow and the Passage of Time
Cuaron makes many stylistic choices that set this film apart. One is how he uses the Whomping Willow to show the passage of time.
As usual, the story takes place over an entire school year. So we see the tree change with the seasons.
Using it for this purpose isn’t necessary. But it’s helpful — and pretty.
And it takes on more significance because the Willow is so important in this story. It destroys Harry’s broomstick… it beats the shit out of Harry and Hermione… and it protects the tunnel that leads to the Shrieking Shack, where one of the most crucial scenes takes place.
7. The Knight Bus
This is the sort of thing I didn’t appreciate when I was younger and the books were still coming out, and I wanted everything to be as accurate as possible.
I have no idea where they came up with the idea to stick a shrunken head on the rearview mirror so it could provide commentary in a Caribbean accent.
But that and Ernie’s bug-eye glasses provide the perfect zany tone for to accompany the wild driving.
It helps keep the tone lighter than in the book. There’s no lingering on Harry’s doom and gloom as he fears he’s been expelled. And that’s probably good, considering how dark it gets later in the movie anyway.
6. Divination Is Fun!
In Chamber of Secrets, Moaning Myrtle is the character I enjoy much more on screen than in the book. Here, it’s Professor Trelawney.
In the book, I mostly appreciate Trelawney only for how she exasperates Hermione and McGonagall. But Emma Thompson (who I didn’t even recognize in this getup) is perfect in bringing her to life. The misty voice, the bug-eye glasses, practically coughing up a hairball after she makes her one true prediction… she makes Divination a lot of fun.
5. Chaos with Aunt Marge
This is the best opening Dursleys scene the movies have given us so far. And it’s another scene that thrives under Cuaron’s direction. Once Harry “blows up” Marge, it’s chaos. The music, the screaming, the ringing of a cuckoo clock—it’s one of the most fun scenes in the movie. And I do NOT feel that way about this scene in the book.
As the situation goes to shit for the Dursleys and Marge, she comes off as even more awful than in the book. It’s not just that she’s cruel to Harry. The way she expects him to carry her bags and to clean up the glass she broke, while only acknowledging him enough to get his attention — she treats him even worse than Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, if that’s possible.
But the best moment of the scene is right after Harry yells at her to shut up…
She doesn’t get mad. Instead, she gets a sly grin on her face before she starts to tell him off. To me, it looks like she was looking for a fight. With a 13-year-old boy. She’s remarkably nasty. And if I hadn’t believed she deserved what she got to that point, that smile did it. This is a memorable performance by Pam Ferris in just a few moments of screen time.
4. Badass Buckbeak
I never cared much about Buckbeak in the book except for how much sadness he causes Hagrid. But he’s badass here.
I actually love the scene where Harry rides him over the grounds at Hogwarts. I know it’s kinda cheesy, but I’m a sucker for it.
He’s also as “imperious” as Rowling constantly tells us in the book, which is why he doesn’t let Draco disrespect him. Even better is when he protects Harry and Hermione from Werewolf Lupin and sends him scurrying away. I don’t remember that being in the book, but it’s awesome.
3. More Rat Than Man
Timothy Spall also only gets a few minutes on screen to play Pettigrew when he’s finally forced to show himself. But man, he’s perfect.
He maintains his rat-like mannerisms because he’s been in the form of Scabbers for 12 years without ever transforming back into his human form, as far as we know.
But he seems uncannily more like a rat than a man even afterward.
He tries to pretend he’s still friends with Lupin and Sirius before making a break for it. And he pleads for mercy with Harry, Ron, and Hermione.
He makes desperation even uglier than it usually is. It’s such a quick but wonderful performance.
2. More Frightening Than Voldemort
The dementors are legitimately scary. And they had to be done right. After all, Harry’s already faced down Voldemort twice in two movies—not to mention as a baby. So if the dementors are supposed to scare him even more than Voldemort and have such a horrible effect on him, they have to come off as frightening.
Some of the flourishes add to their effect, like frost forming on things they touch, and flowers shriveling up and dying near them. They remind me of the Ringwraiths from The Lord of the Rings. If you’re going for scary, that’s a hell of a standard to live up to.
1. Professor Lupin
David Thewlis is older than I pictured Lupin, but he looks just as sickly.
Even though they don’t show much of his teaching beyond the scene with the boggart, the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher always plays an important role. Here, the most important thing is to make clear that Lupin actually knows what he’s doing, as opposed to Professors Quirrell and Lockhart. That comes across the first time we meet him awake — on the train, when he gets rid of the dementor.
Lupin is also a mentor and father figure to Harry. They have a few good scenes together, including when he teaches Harry the Patronus Charm.
Admittedly, Lupin is missing some nuance I love from the book, like his guilt over having abused Dumbledore’s trust when he was a student. At least those details aren’t vital to the plot, like some other things they fail to explain.
But they make him even more sympathetic by playing up how hard his life has been as a werewolf.
One of my favorite additions to the movie is when he tells Harry about Lily’s extraordinary kindness, and how she was there for him when no one else was. Maybe it says more about Lily, but just knowing Lupin was on the receiving end of her kindness, compassion, and friendship makes me like him that much more.
3 Things I’m Mixed About
3. Getting Caught with the Marauders’ Map
I love the way Harry tells Snape, “My father didn’t strut, nor do I” …
And Snape asking Lupin if he’s out for a stroll in the moonlight is classic…
This dialogue also happens right after Harry impatiently waits to see if Peter Pettigrew—a man believes is dead—will show up and cross his path, because his name is on the map.
But why the hell is Harry out of bed at night, wandering the castle, without his Invisibility Cloak? When he sees Pettigrew’s name on the map, I get that he wants to investigate. But why doesn’t he stay hidden, like he always has in the past?
In the book, this conversation—and having the map confiscated by Snape, then Lupin—happens after Harry’s second unauthorized Hogsmeade visit. But they leave that trip out of the movie, so they have to have Snape catch him with the map some other way.
Couldn’t they have come up with a reason he doesn’t have the cloak, though? Leaving the common room at night without it—and with NO explanation for why he doesn’t wear it—makes him seem like an incompetent nitwit.
2. The Boggart in the Wardrobe
This is one of the most fun book scenes. And it starts that way here as Neville, Ron, and Parvati take the first turns battling the boggart.
But Harry is up fourth, which seems to catch Lupin totally off guard. He jumps in front of Harry to protect him, casts his own Ridikkulus charm, and then ends class early—flustered and with no explanation for his students.
Of course, we learn later that Lupin was afraid the boggart would turn into Voldemort when Harry faced it. But he acts like he hadn’t thought about it until the moment it was Harry’s turn.
In the book, he lets Harry answer one of his questions before they start dealing with the boggart so Harry still gets to participate. That’s an important distinction because it’s so crucial to show Lupin is a good teacher. And not just that he knows the material, but that he’s prepared to run his class.
This seems as if they went for more dramatic tension, but it’s at the expense of better characterization.
Not to mention, we actually see the boggart turn into a dementor, if only for a split second. Did Lupin not see that? He stands face to face with it for that moment.
1. The Main Man
Sirius was originally my favorite character in the series the first time I read this book. Dumbledore has since stolen that spot, but Sirius is still very close to the top. And they cast a great actor in Gary Oldman. But he doesn’t come across as well as he should.
I think it’s because everything is rushed when he finally appears. Even his dialogue feels rushed and doesn’t carry the weight I expected it to.
His line to Pettigrew about dying rather than betraying his friends—he actually says it about himself, that it’s what he would’ve done if necessary—doesn’t hit me nearly as hard in the movie.
But I’m glad he still offers to have Harry live with him. And he gets a quiet moment with Harry and Hermione after they rescue him, right before he takes off with Buckbeak, which helps affirm one of Harry’s most important relationships.
5 Things I Don’t Like
5. The Hunchback of the Leaky Cauldron
Tom, the proprietor of the Leaky Cauldron, is in Sorcerer’s Stone when Hagrid brings Harry there. He was just a normal looking older man at the time. Now he’s apparently a villainous looking hunchback.
I assume this is just another innocuous change Cuaron decided on, but I prefer these types of changes when they really add something—like some of the dementors’ flourishes—and when they don’t break existing continuity.
4. The Broom Harry Never Knew He Wanted
It’s a bummer that they leave out most of the Quidditch, considering this is the book when Gryffindor finally wins the championship. But for the sake of streamlining the story, the opening match, when the dementors crash the stadium and cause Harry to fall off his broom, is the only one that’s really necessary.
But still, since they keep in the part about Harry’s broom flying straight into the Whomping Willow and getting destroyed, he needs a new broom.
Here’s what I don’t like about it…
Nothing was ever teased about the Firebolt earlier. It was never mentioned. We never got to hear how it’s the greatest broom in the world, how it wipes the floor with the entire Nimbus series, and how Ireland’s national team will use them in the Quidditch World Cup.
Having Harry get the Firebolt at the end of the movie, when it arrives with Buckbeak’s feather so he knows it’s from Sirius, is a change that works. But a simple mention of it once or twice earlier in the movie would’ve made this much stronger. It’s literally the final scene in the movie, and if you don’t know about the Firebolt from the book, then this item that’s meant to be so important is just showing up unannounced right at the end.
3. Cold, Cold Dumbledore
I don’t mean to knock Michael Gambon. Sadly, Richard Harris died at some point after filming Chamber of Secrets. But he was PERFECT as Dumbledore—exactly how I pictured him.
Gambon is a great actor, but I don’t like him in this part. He doesn’t exude the same warmth. That’s the main thing that separates the two performances, but warmth is one of Dumbledore’s most important characteristics, just as much as his brilliance and magical ability.
2. In the Shrieking Shack
So much is revealed in this scene…
- Sirius finally appears…
- We learn he’s an Animagus and is really the dog Harry thought all along was the Grim…
- We learn Lupin is a werewolf…
- We learn Peter Pettigrew is also an Animagus and has been Scabbers all along…
- And we learn Pettigrew, not Sirius, betrayed Lily and James Potter to Voldemort—so Sirius has been locked up as an innocent man for all these years.
On top of all that, Snape arrives and prepares to turn Sirius over to the dementors…
Until Harry attacks him so he can learn the truth!
It’s a truly compelling scene in the book. But it’s so rushed here. Think about how much that is to cover. And they go through it all so quickly.
Honestly it’s not even believable that Harry would attack Snape under these circumstances, because the little he’s learned by the time Snape comes in is too rushed to be convincing.
1. This Needs Some Explaining…
Too many important pieces of plot aren’t explained at any point, and it hurts the movie’s coherence.
And this isn’t me being upset about the things left out that I like in the book; these are points they needed to cover…
Like, they never explain how Lupin knows how to use the Marauder’s Map. But he (and Sirius) know exactly what it is.
They also never explain who Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs are. And they leave out Snape’s history with the Marauders. They never explain that the reason he’s so keen to catch Sirius is because Sirius once played a prank that would’ve gotten him killed when they were at Hogwarts. These are all pieces that are too vital to leave out.
Tim Matassa
