![](\"http:\/\/images.amazon.com\/images\/P\/B00005JMAF.01.MZZZZZZZ.jpg\")
<\/a>By the sitting graces of Doyce, Margie and Stan and I went off to see Azkaban<\/em><\/a> last night.<\/p>\nKeen.<\/p>\n
NO SPOILERS BELOW, I THINK, BUT THE COMMENTS SECTION IS FAIR GAME.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Under the direction of Alfonso Cuaron<\/a>, there’s a marvelous richness of the environment, a comparative sophistication of story and issues, and the “child” actors, even as they age, are coming their own, and the supporting cast — from the previously underused Alan Rickman<\/a> to newcomer Gary Oldman<\/a> — were all marvelous.<\/p>\n If there’s one flaw in the movie — and it’s a seriously one — is that there’s about another hour of movie that should be here. Every scene feels at least the slightest bit rushed, a sentence or two short at the beginning, cut off perhaps a few beats early. Major plot bits are barely sketched out before we rush onto the next. It’s like reading a really good Cliff’s Notes version of the movie. You get all (or at least most) of what needs to be said, but it’s ultimately frustrating.<\/p>\n Still, there’s a lot of nice stuff to watch. The bus. The flyovers of the castle, and the castle itself. The hippogriff. The ubiquitous and horrifying mug shots of Sirius Black. The map. Lots of great Hermione action. The Dementors. And while sometimes the movie feels like Back to the Future<\/em>, Hermione’s unexpected appearances in class …<\/p>\n There’s a lot missing or truncated. The origins of a certain document that plays a large role, and, indeed, the whole relationship of that quartet. Relationships that that are never shown but play a role later. Sirius’ infiltration beyond the mere fact of it. Whole bits of Hermione backstory gets the world’s briefest explanation, coming across more as deus ex machina,<\/em> rather than something whose groundwork has previously been laid. The Hermione\/Ron\/Crookshank conflict. Important aspects of the animagus bit, as applies to Harry. Why the hell Harry doesn’t get his butt kicked out of Hogwarts for actions taken toward a certain teacher. Indeed, the whole shack scene feels horribly rushed and abbreviated, to the point of confusion, as does Harry’s overhearing scene in the pub. “Hit the highest points and move on. We only have 142 minutes!”<\/p>\n And, surprisingly, there’s a lot of extra stuff added in. The changing of seasons. Recap views of certain action. Sometimes that’s good, barely keeping the film from being breakneck the entire time. Sometimes it feels like a few bits that could have been edited more tightly for the sake of putting in other stuff.<\/p>\n If this were a LotR <\/em>movie, we’d know that there was an extended version coming out on DVD with another 30-odd minutes of explication and filling out of the dialog. I have doubts HTatPoA <\/em>will have that, though there may be a few bits. And that’s a shame, because what’s here is, generally speaking, quite good. There’s just not enough of it. <\/p>\n I’m glad I saw it, and will be looking forward to the next (and to getting the DVD of this one), but I can’t help feeling just a wee bit disappointed.<\/p>\n Be sure to watch the credits all the way through, by the way. There’s no big surprise at the end, but it’s all unrelentingly clever. And the musical recap is quite nice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By the sitting graces of Doyce, Margie and Stan and I went off to see Azkaban last night. Keen. NO SPOILERS BELOW, I THINK, BUT THE COMMENTS SECTION IS FAIR…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[527,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-harry-potter","category-media"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6004,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/06\/09\/azkaban_in_15_m.html","url_meta":{"origin":6019,"position":0},"title":"Azkaban in 15 Minutes","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 9-Jun-04 9:30am","format":false,"excerpt":"Most excellent. THE KIDS: Lupin! SIRIUS: Remus! LUPIN: Sirius! SIRIUS: Hug! HERMIONE: Werewolf! RON AND HARRY: What? Which is about all I can print here without lots of spoilers, but...","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-books"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":22079,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/08\/10\/book-review-harry-potter-and-the-prisoner-of-azkaban-by-j-k-rowling-1999.html","url_meta":{"origin":6019,"position":1},"title":"Book Review: “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” by J.K. Rowling (1999)","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 10-Aug-11 8:36pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling My rating: 4 of 5 stars And the HP tale starts lurching into darker, more mature material. We learned backstory about Harry's dad (and part of why Snape is so snarly). We see people framed, people lose jobs due to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-books"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5031,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/11\/13\/something_wicke.html","url_meta":{"origin":6019,"position":2},"title":"Something wicked this way comes","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 13-Nov-03 12:58pm","format":false,"excerpt":"A trailer is out for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Looks like more welcome screen time with Alan Rickman's Severus Snape -- and Gary Oldman as Sirius Black?...","rel":"","context":"In "Harry Potter"","block_context":{"text":"Harry Potter","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/franchises\/harry-potter"},"img":{"alt_text":"Azkaban","src":"\/blog\/images\/azkaban.jpg","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3401,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/12\/02\/harry_potter.html","url_meta":{"origin":6019,"position":3},"title":"Harry Potter","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 2-Dec-02 8:08am","format":false,"excerpt":"Thanks to the good graces of the grandparents, Margie and I actually got to go on a date Friday night. Woo-hoo! First off, a visit to an Indian restaurant by...","rel":"","context":"In "Harry Potter"","block_context":{"text":"Harry Potter","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/franchises\/harry-potter"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/images.amazon.com\/images\/P\/B00005JLDS.01.MZZZZZZZ.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5331,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/04\/06\/harry_potter_2.html","url_meta":{"origin":6019,"position":4},"title":"Harry Potter","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 6-Apr-04 7:38am","format":false,"excerpt":"A new trailer is out for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Looking good -- fun and spooky. Though -- boy, are those \"kids\" beginning to look not-very-kidlike any...","rel":"","context":"In "Harry Potter"","block_context":{"text":"Harry Potter","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/franchises\/harry-potter"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":41833,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/04\/27\/when-harry-met-muggly.html","url_meta":{"origin":6019,"position":5},"title":"When Harry Met Muggly","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 27-Apr-14 11:08pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Actually, we have seen this. It's called the X-Men franchise ...\u00a0\ufeff The Greatest Harry Potter Sequel We'll Never Get to See Which is unfortunate because this is easily better than 'Prisoner of Azkaban.' View this post on Google+","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6019"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6019\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42581,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6019\/revisions\/42581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}