Unable to take the atmosphere at his uncle’s house during the school holidays anymore, young wizard Harry Potter runs away, and discovers the evil Sirius Black has escaped after twelve years in the isolated and Gothic Azkaban Prison, guarded by the terrifying Dementors, wraith-like creatures which can drain the souls out of those they encounter. Black is believed to be an acolyte of the diabolical Lord Voldemort and is determined to kill Harry. Harry takes the train back to Hogwarts School but as it winds through the countryside the train is attacked by the Dementors who search the compartments, believing Black may be on board, causing Harry to faint. Back in class, gamekeeper Hagrid is showing the pupils Buckbeak, his Hippogriff, who shows how intelligent it is by attacking Draco Malfoy after he insults it. With everyone else on a visit to Hogsmeade village, Harry is given a Marauder’s Map which enables him to see the movements of everyone in the school and reveals a secret passage. Wearing his invisibility cloak he travels to the village and hears a terrifying conversation in which it is revealed that Black is actually his godfather, and is the one who betrayed Harry’s parents to Voldemort, which resulted in their deaths. Still tormented by thoughts of the Dementors, Professor Remus Lupin teaches him how to create a ‘Patronus’, a concentrated happy thought which can deflect the Dementors. An argument starts between Harry’s friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley when Ron accuses Hermione’s cat of eating his pet rat, Scabbers, and Buckbeak is sentenced to death for attacking Draco. On the Marauder’s Map Harry sees the figure of Peter Pettigrew, the wizard Black was accused of killing, but cannot see him in the real world. Scabbers turns up in Hagrid’s cottage and Ron chases it into the woods into the roots of a Whomping Willow tree, but he is attacked by a dog and dragged into the roots, the dog in fact being Black in animal form. Harry and Hermione follow him to find Lupin and Black together. They explain that Pettigrew, who has been hiding in the form of Scabbers, is the one who betrayed Harry’s parents, Black being innocent. Going back to Hogwarts with Lupin he suddenly reveals himself to be a werewolf and in the form of the wolf is unable to stop attacking Harry and the others, the three being saved by Black who turns himself into a dog and fights off the lycanthrope as Pettigrew escapes. The werewolf leaves but Black is injured and the four of them are attacked by the Dementors who want to reclaim Black, but Harry manages to deflect them with a Patronus. Harry awakes in the infirmary and tries to tell the authorities that Sirius Black is innocent, but he has already been recaptured and prepared for a soul-draining by the Dementors.... The replacement of director Chris Columbus with Alfonso Cuaron brings with it an obvious change of style, inevitable when one considers Columbus’ biggest hit was Home Alone and Cuaron’s was the rather more intricate and adult Y Tu Mama Tambien. Thus The Prisoner of Azkaban has Harry maturing, as do Hermione and, to a lesser extent, Ron, and there are once again problems of identity, Sirius Black (a suitably gaunt Gary Oldman) being a scapegoat, imprisoned for the inevitable crime he did not commit, and David Thewlis as Lupin is affected with lycanthropy, a cunning pun on the surname, and where he is in his werewolf state he is a dangerous ravening beast rather than the kind and wise teacher he is in human form. Cuaron’s film, although dispensing with some of the sub-plots of J.K.Rowling’s book, yet still running a hefty two hours and twenty minutes, is more imaginative with the visuals than Columbus, who all too often just transferred the written word to the screen with little embellishment. The Dementors are frightening apparitions, almost like undulating flying black overcoats, which may just be too frightening for little ones, and several touches are memorable, the animated paintings, the triple-decker Knight bus and creature transformations being handled with imagination and invention. Several prominent actors return for what is now known in the British action world as the PPP (the Potter Pension Plan), with Alan Rickman being suitably sneering as Professor Snape while Michael Gambon makes Professor Dumbledor a kindlier incarnation than when played by Richard Harris. David Thewlis (Naked / The Island Of Dr.Moreau) is well cast as the tormented Lupin while Emma Thompson just irritates as the ‘kooky’ Prof.Trelawney, all double-takes and unfeasibly large glasses. The Potter machine is in full gear and the production line not likely to quit before all seven books are filmed, but at least with this third installment the producers have proved they are willing to go with directors who have ideas and talent rather than just dependable journeymen.