bltzkriegmcanon

Holy Jesus. I just got back from watching it tonight. A-fucking-mazing. This movie was better than the first 2 movies or books [b]combined[\b]. Damn, this is, for me, the best movie of the summer, easily. I can say with no ego that is the best of the Potter movies. Hands down. And I don't just mean the first 3, I mean of all 7 or possibly 8. This movie puts the first 2 to fucking shame. That's how good it is. Those first two can't hold a damn candle to this one. If I ever meet Cuaron, I'll skip shaking his hand and go straight to shaking his dick. Incredible. Everything about this movie captures the precise spirit of the book. Not every detail is captured, and that's no complaint. There are certain things in the book that are too complicated or not important enough that I think, for time's sake, can be left out.

**SPOILER ALERT FROM THIS POINT FORWARD**

Spoiler: Things like Snape hating Lupin and wanting to kill Sirius as 1) glory-seeking and 2)revenge for the shit that he pulled on him at Hogwarts back in the day. Or how Hermione came across Crookshanks, and why Crookshanks was always after Scabbers (Pettigrew), and how Crookshanks was in league with Black from the start.

While these events would have made the story perhaps even easier to grasp for those who haven't read the books, I still believe that Cuaron's storytelling abilities and directorial style enable him to make the story palatable, followable and damn well enjoyable.

I'm not the kind of guy who laughs or openly smiles during movies. I tend to internalize what I experience during the movie and then express my feelings on it afterwards. In the case of this movie, I was grinning almost the entire time. Everything about this movie tells me that it's going to be THE best movie that comes out this summer, and probably the best movie of the entire Potter series. That's not me bashing the first 2 movies, because they, in their own way, were good movies, but still, I say that those 2 movies just cannot, in any way, shape, or form come close to the quality that is The Prisoner of Azkaban. Damn.

The acting in this movie was far, far superior to the previous movies. The young people playing the roles of the main characters, and even side characters have made tremendous strides in their acting abilites.

The special effects in this movie are spectacular. Everything about the effects in this movie are done so subtly that there's never an obvious point where graphics are being showcased just for the sake of graphics, as is often the case in many big budget fantasy/sci-fi films. Cuaron, once again, influenced this process, making every effect apparent enough so that they are noticed, but they are not so apparent that they draw undue attention to themselves. That is the intention of anything in film however, and it is sad that people in the special effects field tend to forget that. However, things like magic, creatures, and even the Knight Bus are done effortlessly by Cuaron's crew, delivering just the effect that one would desire to see from a movie about magic. The effects are never so outrageous that one thinks "WOW!!! These are good graphics! So where's the real movie?" No. This is not the case with Azkaban.

All in all, if you can't tell by the length of my post and it's contents, I really, really enjoyed this movie, and not only was it "awesome" but it was "damn good" as well. Words like "awesome" are usually reserved for movies like The Day After Tomorrow and Spider-Man, which contain sequences that are just that, "awesome sequences", but these do not necessarily construct a "good" movie.

However, in the case of Azkaban, there are "awesome" effects, and "awesome" sequences, such as the Spoiler: dementor scene down by the lake where Harry repels them, the entire thing with the stag, the werewolf, all of it. But these effects are not so much that they overwhelm the content of the movie. Therefore, this is a movie that is a rare case indeed, in which it is both "awesome" and "good" in the same breath.

My final score: 10/10. Go see it, whether or not you've read the books is meaningless, you will most likely enjoy this film, and I mean that at least 90% of the time, this movie will be THOUROUGHLY enjoyable.

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