Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Review

Cuaron arrived with no interest in illustration and rebuilt the series from the ground. Michael Seresin drains the gold out of the castle and replaces it with grey Scottish light, the uniforms go untucked, and the grounds acquire a hill, a covered bridge and a stone circle that give Hogwarts a real map for the first time. The Dementors are the best monster design in the franchise precisely because they are barely shown, and the time turner finale is built with a rigour the later films never attempted, every echo planted an hour earlier and then paid without a line of explanation.

Gary Oldman and David Thewlis play two ruined men rather than two plot devices, and the film's true subject is Harry discovering that the adults who loved his parents are broken. It is not flawless. Cuaron cuts the Marauders history so completely that a viewer who has not read the book never learns why the map matters or who those four names belonged to, and Michael Gambon's first Dumbledore is a jarring, brisker man wearing the same robes.

The trade was worth making. This is the film that proved the series could be directed instead of merely transcribed.