Harry Goes Scary

Since every English actor working today is required to do one of these films at some point, Prisoner of Azkaban introduces Julie Christie as the Hogsmeade Innkeeper, Lenny Henry as a Jamaican-accented shrunken head, Dawn French as the Fat Lady, Emma Thompson as hippie-gypsy Professor Trelawney (she plays it too broadly, but that's a minor gripe), rodent-faced Timothy Spall in an amusingly appropriate role (to reveal here might spoil things), and David Thewlis as new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor Remus Lupin, whose name is a bit of a giveaway when it comes to his obligatory hidden secret (fans of his work in The Island of Dr. Moreau will be particularly amused). Poor Rik Mayall still hasn't made the final cut in his role as Peeves the poltergeist, and yet Warwick Davis gets to appear as yet another totally different little person -- his third such character in the series.

But there's still plenty of time for the old favorites. Robbie Coltrane is always dependable as the half-giant Hagrid, and Alan Rickman's brooding Snape is a joy once more, making even lines as simple as, "Turn to page three hundred and ninety-four" drip with such overblown menace as to crack up the audience at the preview screening. As Harry's best friend Ron, Rupert Grint has finally had his voice break, but he's not a lot of use, unless you consider infinite utterances of the word "brilliant" to be useful. There are hints dropped to a future potential romance with Hermione (Emma Watson), which can only be because she needs someone helpless to take care of.

As for Harry himself (Daniel Radcliffe), let's just say it's a shame that Star Wars: Episode III has wrapped principal photography, because Hayden Christensen could learn a lot from young Radcliffe's portrayal of adolescent angst meeting magical fury. Unfortunately perennial rival Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton) gets short shrift this time, losing all his menace and becoming, to put it bluntly, a whiny little bitch. Then again, the bullying Lavinia in A Little Princess barely figured in that movie either -- maybe Cuarón just can't relate to such characters.

In the Harry Potter film series thus far, The Sorcerer's Stone remains the strongest, perhaps because the first look at any rich new world is almost always going to be more groundbreaking than its sequels. But Prisoner of Azkaban is a worthy and stylistically different followup, where Chamber of Secrets often felt like an unimaginative retread. Haven't read the next two books in the series yet, but here's hoping that they avoid the running cliché of the Scooby-Doo scene that all three films rely on, in which the one character who isn't who you think he is gets found in some heretofore undiscovered room, where he proceeds to explain the entire plot so far to Harry and us. It was cool the first time because the character in question had a monster face growing out of the back of his head, but it's getting old as a narrative device. Blame Rowling, but Kloves and Cuarón so deftly rearrange other parts of the story that it really stands out when they fall ever-so-slightly short.