“Prisoner of Azkaban” won’t enchant all

What did I think of “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” on film?

I’ve been asked that question many times since June 4, when the newest film installment in the young wizard’s saga was released. My reaction to the film is mixed, as I expect the general reaction will be.

In some ways, this is the best Harry Potter film thus far. While it’s less faithful than the first two, it’s based on the best book in the series, so the plot is stronger. The whole sequence in which Harry and Hermione use a device that turns back time works very well.

The film features fine performances by Gary Oldman (as Sirius Black), Emma Thompson (as Sibyl Trelawney), David Thewlis (as Remus Lupin), and Timothy Sprall (as Peter Pettigrew).

It features a fabulous new creature: Buckbeak the Hippogriff, a delight to every Harry Potter fan I’ve talked to since the film opened. Reaction to the hairless werewolf is more mixed (he seems to work better for children like my friends Morgan, 10, and Mellea, 8, than for adults).

And “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” is a visual delight: viewers spend more time than in previous films on the Hogwarts grounds. We visit Hagrid’s gorgeous pumpkin patch, experience a beautiful castle courtyard previously unrevealed, and explore, with Harry, a satisfying incarnation of “The Marauder’s Map,” one of Rowling’s most ingenious inventions.

Director Alfonso Cuarón effectively captures the atmosphere of Harry’s third year. I was particularly impressed by the scene depicting Harry’s first experience with a Dementor, on the Hogwarts train. This is a difficult encounter to depict visually, but Cuarón pulls it off.

Yet because the film is not a faithful adaptation of Rowling’s work, most hardcore Harry Potter fans will be disappointed with something.

For me, the big letdown was Harry’s confrontation in the Shrieking Shack with Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew. As Hogwarts students, these men, with Harry’s father, formed a foursome known as “Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs.” The movie never tells us that, and this is a critical omission.

My friend Jason said he had to explain this relationship to his wife, who saw the film without having read any of the books. The father of another friend complained that he was completely lost.

For me, Rowling’s depiction of the confrontation scene in the book is the high point of her writing. The scene rises dramatically until Harry stops Black and Lupin from killing Pettigrew, who betrayed his parents. Harry explains to Pettigrew, “I don’t reckon my dad would’ve wanted them to become killers – just for you.”

Here, Harry experiences a moral crossroads. Instead of opting for the emotional satisfaction of revenge, he chooses the better justice of sending Pettigrew to Azkaban. I have repeatedly compared the scene to Huckleberry Finn’s crisis of conscience – his decision that he would go to hell rather than betray the slave Jim. Both episodes involve and inspire loyalty and moral courage.

But in Cuarón’s hands, Harry’s critical line is misplaced and the entire scene mis-paced. Harry refuses to let Black and Lupin kill Pettigrew, and everyone breathes a sign of relief and climbs back up through the Whomping Willow tree before Harry utters the line that is supposed to be the high point of the scene. I wish Cuarón had a Time-Turner and could shoot that scene again.

I’m hearing similar disappointments from other Harry Potter fans.

Nine-year-old Erika was frustrated that a Firebolt is delivered to Harry in the film’s last scene with no previous indication of how much Harry wants one. (This is largely because, in the book, Harry wanders Diagon Alley window-shopping while he waits for the school term to start, whereas, in the film, Cuarón restricts him to his room to reinforce the idea of danger.)

Erika’s sister Laurie, a college graduate with a degree in English, didn’t like the fact that Harry first spots Peter Pettigrew on the Marauder’s Map, a scene missing from the book. Laurie fears that a critical scene in “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” wherein Harry spots Barty Crouch on the Marauder’s Map will lack impact because Cuarón has already used that magic trick.

Crystal, another adult fan with a degree in English, echoed Laurie’s comment about the Marauder’s Map and was distressed by the film’s characterization of Harry’s nemesis Draco Malfoy. “I don’t think Draco is as big a sissy as they made him out to be,” Crystal said.

She also felt that Ron Weasley is reduced by the film to the role of “court jester used for comic relief” and noted that some of Ron’s lines in the book are given to Hermione in the film. Hermione even gets Ron’s heroic line in the climactic scene with Sirius Black: “If you want to kill Harry, you’ll have to kill us too!”

Jeff, an adult Harry Potter reader, felt that, in general, character was sacrificed in “Prisoner of Azkaban” to emphasize effect and atmosphere instead.

Like every other adult fan I’ve talked to, Jeff found the inflation of Aunt Marge far too comic. For younger fans such as Morgan and Mellea, that scene worked better. Laurie pointed out that the focus of the scene should be Harry’s fear of being expelled.

But most Harry Potter fans found magic in “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” as well. Nearly everyone I’ve talked to praises the look of the film. Everyone seems to like Buckbeak and the Marauder’s Map.

Gillian, another adult fan, liked the enjoyed the background antics of the Hogwarts ghosts and paintings.

Katherine, a contributor to my book “The Ivory Tower and Harry Potter,” loved the Knight Bus.

Jason especially liked the talking heads on the Knight Bus and elsewhere.

Laurie found the Dementors “even scarier” than she imagined them in the book, and she now expects to be terrified by the film version of Book V, when Harry and Dudley encounter Dementors in an alley.

Crystal loves the shot on the train with the fade from Harry looking at his own face in the window to the horseless carriages in the next scene.

George (another adult fan) said he was completely enthralled with the movie in a way he hasn’t been since he saw “The Wizard of Oz” at age 8.

The central problem with “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” is an odd one. It requires that a viewer know details such as the relationship among Harry’s father’s friends and Harry’s reason for asking the Knight Bus to take him to Diagon Alley. But the film sometimes contradicts or alters this background information, and, for devoted fans of any book adapted to film, the transformation fails at those points.

Whether moviegoers are bothered by this problem appears to depend on their familiarity with Rowling’s text more than on any other factor – even age. Those who have read the book repeatedly and can recite passages by heart will have a mixed reaction. Those who know only the basic story may be more completely satisfied with Cuarón’s film.

Katherine put it best: The film expects you to know a lot about the Harry Potter series but, at the same time, disappoints you if you do.

P.S. I’d like to hear what YOU thought of “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,” so please send me an owl.

"Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain."

– Arthur Weasley, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets