Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban- Movie Review

  

I watched and read the book as part of the Page to Screen Challenge! 

  "The story-During Harry's third year, he bloats up his aunt Marge out of fury and then storms out of Privet Drive.Then he takes the Knight Bus and counts down the days to return to Hogwarts.The most dangerous criminal has mad the first ever escape from Azkaban, the most heavily guarded prison of the wizarding world,and he is looking for Harry Potter. But here is the twist,the criminal/murderer is Sirius Black, James Potter's best man and Harry's god-father!! Everyone knows that Sirius Black betrayed the Potters to Voldermort, or did her? 

Meanwhile Draco Malfoy got smart during Hagrid's class and got his arm injured!This is going to cost the creature who injured him- a hippogruff-his life! The ministry has ordered his Buckbeak- Hagrid's pet hippogruff- to execution! Can Harry, Hermoine and Ron save Buckbeaks's like and escape unscathed from the prowling murder?"

That synopsis is from my book review of Prisoner of Azkaban!

The movie picked the cast amazingly. I repeat myself, I loved Sirius Black- Gary Goldman was perfect! My three favorite characters in this book were so perfectly done in the movie- Lupin, Buckbeak and Sirius of course!! 

But the adaptation was, i can't quite get myself to say horrible, it just wasn't right. They cut out so much detail and jumbled up the storyline. Especially the bits in the Whomping Willow. The movie scene of this part was short and brief. And there was a slight error too- Scabbers/Pettigrew's finger! It wasn't missing in the film, even though Lupin and Harry refer to it-the character has all his fingers in the scene! The only character who did a super job on that scene was Severus Snape. His adaptation was more or less accurate- except for the cloak which was completely cut out!! ><

And the boggart scene, and the Leaky Cauldron scenes-where Harry spends longer alone and gets to wander and shop on his won in Diagon Alley! And the even cut of the ice-cream sundae bits. :( 

They also changed the Molly and Arthur discussion to a quick hug and pull-aside-talk!

The hippogruff rescue scene was fuddled and stone-throwing was added! And during Sirius's rescue Hermoine uses a different a different spell to open the gate! Annnd they don't show the end of the book-the letter from Sirius with permission for Hogsmeade. I could go on about the variations but i shall stop here for now! 

I know i sound like a paranoid HP fan, but i was quite cross at their befuddling! *sigh* I don't think movie adaptation ever do the book justice! That's just how the world works i guess! But cutting some slack on the directors, they did an excellent interpretation of Buckbeak,the characters and all the locations! :)

What did you think of the movie? Were you as grouchy as me? Or did you watch the movie in happy oblivion without reading the book? :P