Not Coming to a Theater Near You

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban / UK / USA / 2004

This will no doubt come across to some as a crime of spiteful fuddy-duddiness tantamount to seal-clubbing, infanticide, and a wanton use of aerosol spray-cans, but I really don’t give a shit about Harry Potter, nor do I think his saga particularly inventive or unique even my most craven moments of brainless anglophilia. Sure, it’s cute, and I’ve caved to far less endearing similar products, but its repetitive structure, mostly interchangeable plotlines and characters, and general lack of real dramatic consequence utterly fail to coax from me anything more than mild amusement and a fleeting curiosity whenever yet another beloved British actor waddles onscreen in a silly costume.

And — just to clarify — I am one who laps up (as from a mysterious bottle marked, “Drink me”) the creepy 1972 musical version of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland for its very fleeting glimpses of Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan, so don’t think me utterly hard-hearted. It’s just that this particular formula doesn’t woo me, just as I’m no longer especially drawn to watching every crap Britcom that’s resuscitated and serialized on public television. Add to this the fact that the Potter films are about as convincingly English as, well, the James Bond series, and I, for one, am a Hogwarts drop-out.

All that said — and acknowledging the fact that the competition comprises two entries directed by a special effects crew that may or may not have answered to Chris Columbus and one film by Four Weddings’ Mike Newell, who, you’ll be very pleased to know, is now making a film adaptation of Love in the Time of Cholera with Benjamin Bratt and John Leguizamo (yeah, I know. Happy fucking new year. Suicide is always an option) — Alfonso Cuarón’s is the best film in the series. Its ending is anticlimactic and fairly toothless (wolves notwithstanding), but the better part of the film, the first hour especially, is wonderfully tense, with a few hormones flying and a couple of truly chilling sequences. It’s a bit of a shame that Cuarón had not gone a lot farther with the formula, but then he no doubt had a monolithic target-market of 11-year olds to please. Still, a graphic, lust-sating tween-threesome of Harry, Hermione, and Ron Weasley pending, the film manages to take the film series into refreshingly dark territory before capitulating to the bloodless, life-lesson stuff that marks the preceding episodes.

Also it’s interesting to note that this film seems to be where Cuarón cut his teeth on the use of CGI to create seamless, fake sequence shots. Recently, there’s been a bit of chatter (positive and negative) about this in regards to his new film, Children of Men. It would seem that Cuarón’s novel, if slightly cynical choice of such commercial fare as Harry Potter had a very useful, palpable pay-off, i.e. watch what the nerds are up to as they direct 75% of your movie, then steal their tricks for the next project in which you actually have a personal investment. It’s a clever tack, and I hope it actually pays off in his new film.

And, hey! There’s Michael Caine as a hippie!

by Leo Goldsmith | Source: Warner Home Video DVD
31 Dec 2006 4:18 PM | Submit Comment