MiddletownJournal.com

Grade: A-

Verdict: As Harry himself would say, brilliant!

By ELEANOR RINGEL GILLESPIE
Cox News Service

The third time's the charm for Harry and his chums.

"Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" is the movie we'd hoped the first two would be. From the moment the familiar Warner Brothers logo appears, all silvery and black and slightly spooky, we know we're in for an entirely different brand of movie magic.

Chris Columbus, the director-producer of the first two films, has stepped aside as director, staying on as producer only. In his stead is Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón ("Y tu Mamá También," "A Little Princess"), whose bold re-imagining of Harry's adventures couldn't be more antithetical to Columbus' pedestrian, slavishly literal pictures. Cuarón has conjured up his own vision of J.K. Rowling's fantastic world -- making it darker, funnier, livelier, scarier and, well, more magical than its cinematic predecessors.

Back for their third year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (the ever-more-lovely Emma Watson) soon learn there's trouble brewing. A murderously insane rogue wizard named Sirius Black (Gary Oldman) has done the impossible: escaped from escape-proof Azkaban prison. It's believed that Black, once the best friend of Harry's parents, betrayed them to the evil Lord Voldemort. That he's headed for Hogwarts isn't exactly good news for Harry, who may be his next victim.

To guard the school, the prison has dispatched Dementors -- skeletal wraiths that suggest the illegitimate children of a Nazgul and a banshee. But these ominous shrouded figures may be even more dangerous than Black. They can literally suck your soul out and they aren't especially choosy about their victims.

And they have a lot to choose from.

Many familiar faces are back, including Alan Rickman as the sinister Professor Snape, Maggie Smith as the practical Professor McGonagall and Robbie Coltrane as the clumsily good-hearted Hagrid.

However, along with Cuarón and Oldman there are other newcomers. The splendid British actor Michael Gambon ("The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover") has replaced the late Richard Harris as the school's headmaster, Albus Dumbledore. Where Harris' take was breathy and ethereal, Gambon plays him as more of a down-to-earth eccentric -- a sly fox with a twinkle in his eye.

David Thewlis ("Naked") portrays the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Lupin, who becomes Harry's mentor but has a dark secret of his own. Emma Thompson makes a brief but hilarious appearance as the dotty Divination teacher, Sibyll Trelawney, whose beaded and pillowed classroom looks like a college dorm room circa 1969.

Like their characters, Radcliffe, Grint and Watson are growing up -- as people and as actors. For the first time, they seem to be truly acting instead of being plopped on a set and told to recite Rowling's lines (yeah, they were cuter-than-cute, but did we really buy them as actors before?). There's a slightly angry adolescent edge to Radcliffe's Harry, while Grint and Watson blush furiously every time they accidentally brush hands -- just like real 13-year-olds.

"Azkaban" is also the most visually stunning of the "Harry Potter" movies. Cuarón has opened up Hogwarts, taking us outside to the majestic, rough-hewn mountains and mile-high sparkling lakes. In the previous pictures, Hogwarts seemed nestled in a calm and lovely corner of northern England, perhaps down the road from "Babe's" farm. In this film, the setting appears to be more like the mysterious and fog-ridden Scottish highlands (where it was shot), which befits the new way we're asked to look at the school itself. No longer a cozy, ruddy-cheeked place, this Hogwarts is worthy of Macbeth's castle. The students arrive for the new term in a chill downpour, and the jutting parapets are often silhouetted against an "it was a dark and stormy night" backdrop.

Cuarón reminds us that an enchanted world can be a perilous one. Magic perforce creates an unstable, anything-can-happen environment. Ghostly knights charge through study hall. A giant Poe-like pendulum tick-tocks ominously as the students change classes. A giraffe (!) wanders down a corridor. And in the film's most spectacular sequence, peril meets exhilaration as Harry takes to the skies on a Hippogriff, a gigantic half-eagle, half-horse beast whose mythological powers mirror Harry's own soaring curiosity and emerging sense of freedom.

It must be acknowledged that in liberating the material, Cuarón has also been forced to leave a lot of things out. Much of the book's texture -- character exchanges and entire subplots -- has been jettisoned, leaving the movie feeling somewhat backloaded. A friendly warning: best not to read (or reread) the book right before you see the movie; you'll notice too keenly the difficult choices Cuarón has made.

"Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" sets a wondrous new standard for the series. It proves that Rowling's books can be molded to a director's vision without losing their heart, soul and spirit. Or, most crucially, their magic.

Cuarón hands the reins over to Mike Newell ("Into the West") for "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire." But he can gracefully step aside knowing he's taken the series to an entirely different level. As an incantation for the film's mischievous magical map proclaims, "Mischief managed."