SWEET, SWEET POTTER

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is the best movie (of its class) I've seen since X2. I say "of its class" to denote big-budget movies geared for summer (or Christmas) audiences, no doubt based on a book or other previous work, with a bazillion special effects, nice writing, terrific acting, and marketing machinery that would power a small planet.

I'm not sure how to comment on it the way I'd comment on a flawed work or a stupid movie (easy targets). Perhaps that's because it moved me in ways I didn't expect. I knew Alfonso Cuaron's direction would elevate the material, infuse it with poignance. And Azkaban remains my favorite of the five extant books. I predict that this movie is the high point of the series. I don't know if Mike Newell (Goblet of Fire director) can improve on Cuaron's work. He's got a more bloated and complex novel to adapt and, well, he's no Cuaron. But he's also no Chris Columbus, so there's hope.

Now that I've eaten the big cake called Lord of the Rings, gotten a strong dose of what X-Men can do on the big screen, and wait with trepidation for the final Star Wars flick, Harry Potter fills that important big-movie void for me: the place where odd and wildly imagined things occur in all their native strangeness, anchored by characters I root for and enemies I love to loathe.