The Harry Potter Marathon continues: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
So I managed to find the time to watch another one. Pretty much everyone I have talked to has said that this film is where the series starts to get really good, and I have to say thus far I agree. While the first two were enjoyable they seemed a little trite, but this one really started to feel like a progressive story.
I will say that I am starting to wonder if we are ever going to see the often mentioned (in spite of the prohibition against his name) Voldemort. For the biggest, baddest wizard in history he sure seems to spend a lot of time incorporeal, or as an animated memory, or just plain missing. It’s starting to feel a lot like Scooby Doo again, in that everyone spends all day talking about how bad ass the Phantom Astronaut is only to find out he’s a 70 year old abandoned amusement park caretaker in an old costume decorated with a glow in the dark Bedazzler kit.
As per usual, I will not burn up time recounting the story. I’m sure it is old hat for all of you. The movie was good, although as per usual plagued by the deus ex machina monkey on it’s back. In the sci fi world time travel as a plot device is the laziest tool in the writers tool shed and that carries through to fantasy as well, especially when the whole concept of any of the wizards being able to time travel was not even established until about the last 20 minutes of the movie. Also, where did the guy who was the rat come from? He just sort of appeared out of nowhere to take the blame for the death of Harry’s parents. I also have a few other specific questions that maybe someone who has read the books can help me with.
First of all, I once again have an issue with the headmaster of Hogwarts. If you bring in the Dementors (kind of a silly name, IMO. What exactly do they dement? I would have called them the Soul Drinkers. Much cooler name, and more accurately descriptive) to capture Sirius Black and guard your school, why would you keep them around after they have established an inclination towards harming the one student in the school everyone believes Sirius Black is out to kill? It’s like bringing in a pride of lions to protect a lone gazelle. No one noticed the fact that Harry nearly died from a massive fall after being assaulted by a Dementor? In general I would give Headmaster Dumbledore a D+ in the area of maintaining student health and safety, but in this case he is outright fail (Titanic epic fail image courtesy of the movie t shirt category). Also, are the Dementors even remotely competent as prison guards? They seem to move kind of slow, are easily fooled, can be pushed off by any competent wizard, and when they finally capture Sirius Black the load him into a prison cell that only has a single, easily blasted door that leads to the open sky. Good thing no one in the movie has the ability to blow stuff up or fly with magic.
Secondly, didn’t Harry assault Professor Snape? Isn’t that just cause for expulsion from the school? Snape wasn’t about to kill Sirius Black outright, so Harry would have had time to explain the situation. Snape may be a creepy weirdo, but he is reasonable and keen to the letter of the law, it seems.
Thirdly, it seems that everyone in the movie spends a lot of time huffing and puffing through monster infested woods. Wouldn’t things be a little faster and safer if they all had some kind of broom shaped flying device? Or are those only reserved for Quidditch?
Speaking of Quidditch (yes, I’m back on that again) something that occurred to me after I wrote the last post but was reminded of when Harry got his new broom at the end of the film is, doesn’t the game have any kind of rules or guidelines regarding broom specifications? I mean, stock car racing is called stock car racing because all the cars have to conform, within certain perimeters, to certain stock car limits. Baseball bats have to be wooden with no kind of weight added to the core. Pretty much every sport on the planet has specific rules regarding the types of equipment used by players in an attempt to level the playing field. This makes the games one of skill and not one of who has the best piece of equipment. A Formula One car is much faster than a stock car, but if you entered the two into a race together it wouldn’t be a stock car race and Nascar would never sanction it. However, it seems like the richest players in Quidditch have a distinct lead as they can just go out and buy the newest, fastest broom. Slytherin did it last movie and now Harry has a significant advantage going into the next season.
Finally, from what I know about wolves in general and werewolves in particular (at least, from every fiction source or legend I have read) they have a very keen sense of smell, like a bloodhound. Why, then, would Harry and Hermione think they would be able to escape it by running 100 feet and hide behind a tree? This would have been a prime opportunity to use those flying brooms, but I guess they left them back home. Not much chance at all of being pursued by some horrible monster. It’s not like it ever happened to them before. Oh, wait. It’s happened to them in pretty much every movie. Also, it really isn’t much of a stretch to take a name like Lupin and consider the chance of that person being a werewolf. If I were a werewolf and wanted to hide that fact I just might consider changing my name to something a little less leading, like Smith, or Iwilleatyourface.
I have one more big Harry Potter question, but it is more general and not specific to any movie so I will save it for one that I don’t have a lot to write about. In spite of the questions that keep coming up in my head, I am enjoying these films quite a bit. I said early on that I was going to avoid any questions related to violations of the basic Laws of Thermodynamics, and I think I am going to have to extend that to questions related to time travel paradoxes.
So I am watching the Change Up tonight and dreading it with every fiber of my being. It looks horrible with a capital H. I can’t tell you how sick I am of Ryan Reynolds and the stupid Van Wilder character he seems incapable of not playing. Hey Ryan. Want to prove you can actually act or something? Why not take a roll that is even slightly different from your usual crap? Remember how Will Ferrell did that with Stranger than Fiction and came out with a brilliant movie? Maybe play someone not so sleazy and well put together. Anyway, expect me to review that pile of refuse tomorrow (who knows? Maybe it will surprise me. If it does, I’m stopping off on the way home and buying several hundred Lottery tickets).
