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Dementors can fly?

Harry Potter is stupid and overrated. I cant beleive people camp out to get the book and it does ziltch for them.

The movies are ok though, still overrated. I saw the 3rd one and Troy was much better of a movie, as well as Shrek 2 but Harry Potter got these awesome ratings (Another reason why Movie reviewers are dumbasses) Harry Potter does have good movies, but come on. They really arent that great.

It was okay. The special effects were fun, but the younger actors were, as always, terrible. Harry continues to prove that he has both the acting abilities and intelligence of a screwdriver. As far as relations to the book go, I don't like the Harry Potter (the book) series much, so I didn't really care how faithful the movie it was. The only thing I REALLY wished they'd transferred to the screen is Peeves. Whatever happened to him?

Best scene: After the fat lady was attacked by Sirius, when they're looking for her, in the background, you can see a giraffe moving around in the paintings. I thought that was neat...

Worst Scene: Harry crying. It wouldn't have sucked so bad if his expression wasn't the same as it always is.

-A Genius (The soundtrack was really good. I'll want to buy it.)

[RANT]

I'd have to say I was disappointed by the third movie, though it may have been my fault for expecting too much, as the book was my favorite.

The movie, oftentimes, seemed choppy and disjointed-- the new director (Alfonso Cuaron, Y Tu Mama, También) seems willing to sacrifice lucidity for artistic concerns. The third movie failed to be as enchanting as the first or as eerily sinister as the second. What they hoped would come across as "dark" seemed more trite than truly scary. I'd hoped to feel as tense as I did while reading the book, expecing Sirius Black to jump out of every corner; but I didn't. The movie sort of ambled along, without jolting the audience every now and again.

It had its good points, of course. The entire auditorium dissolved into laughter when Harry told Ron to "show those spiders who's boss." Although it had other, similar humorous aspects, they /weren't/ the patent J. K. Rowling humor, skillfully dispensed to lighten a tense mood and prevent the book from becoming as dark as Chamber of Secrets. The laughs in Prisoner of Azkaban weren't the relieved venting of young people who had staved off the evil powers attempting to do them in; they seemed, for the most part, oddly out of place. Hermione punches Draco Malfoy and the crowd cheers; the next moment, Buckbeak is "executed."

Buckbeak the Hippogriff was beautifully rendered, but he was not faithful to the mental image, which I and many of the readers I have conversed with seemed to share. He should have been thicker-bodied (and it may have been my imagination, but he seemed to get bigger every time he appeared).

I was utterly dismayed by the Patronus charm. The stag was supposed to attack the dementors, not stand there pinging and shooting white lights at them. And what's up with the flying dementors?

The dementors were far too similar to the Nazgul (Ring Wraiths) from the LotR movies. I never drew a parallel when I read the books-- I would have liked to have seen them with untattered robes and improved music and effects. I'd hoped the director would adequately convey the immense terror of the dementors to the audience; and though he got the signs all right (cold, etc.) it wasn't convincing. And the thing with the dementors sucking the flesh from Harry's face every time they approached was totally weird.

The other thing which puzzled me was why it is necessary to yell magical attacks, but I suppose that can be attributed to acting.

The worst part of the whole movie were the new characters Fudge, Macnair, Black, Lupin, and Pettigrew. Had these characters been cast according to my mental images of them, I might have been able to stomach the movie. And in the past they've done an excellent job-- but I wonder if they hired a new casting director for the third movie. Remus Lupin, who is clearly the most sensitive guy in existence (I mean, really, a werewolf who carries around bricks of chocolate?) was portrayed as a man whose only distinguishing feature was a creepy mustache. The only thing I detested more was his werewolf transformation. And what was up with him playing the bizarre music? Macnair came across as dirty rather than bloodthirstily evil. I found Pettigrew to be creepy and Sirius was insufficiently scary (wanting longer hair and hungry, hollowed features). And wasn't the Minister of Magic supposed to be a bit silly, wearing lime-colored clothing, etc.?

Michael Gambon was passable as Dumbledore, though he'll never approach Richard Harris in my mind, an incredible actor who managed to portray Dumbledore in all his glorious internal contradictions-- an amazingly powerful, almost unapproachable wizard, but also a companionable, witty, droll and kindly headmaster.

Another small thing which irked me was the fact that the Forbidden Forest wasn't very, well, forbidding.

The movie was less a mystery and more an account of what happened-- we didn't have the pleasure of following Harry as he collected clues, assembling them into a puzzle, the answer emerging gradually after changing countless times. The director changed many aspects, assuming we hadn't come to see the same story we had read, yet I've found that I would prefer to see a story as accurate in respect to the text as possible-- I read Prisoner of Azkaban with increasing enjoyment each time as I detect details and subtleties which escaped me before. The book has a lot of heart, even compared to the others in the series, and it just didn't translate well to the silver screen.

[/RANT]

Well, that's that. I'd have to say I feel much better now.

Overall, it was passable as a movie, but a poor incarnation of the text.

Indeed; too true. Now that I've aired my concerns, however, I'll be able to enjoy the movie the next time I see it. ^_^

The 3rd, 7th, 11th and 29th movie always gets screwed over.

Wow! A real scholar of literature, right here in this forum!!!1