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The surround is nice, resonant, and very effective during the action sequences, and in terms of establishing ambience, giving the film’s music space, but at this point the Harry Potter films start to ape the rest of their cinema peers, and start burying the dialogue beneath the action during the more strident moments, making the presence of subtitles more a necessity than a useful option. Harry keeps attracting trouble though, and in between fending off his nemesis Malfoy and learning to fly a Hippogriff, he learns an uncomfortable truth about Sirius Black. That is until the film’s epilogue, the 19-years later vignette, effective in the book, but not so much on film, as the middle-age make-up on young actors doesn’t quite feel reel.
The Limited Edition box set features twenty-five featurettes and a full documentary, a deluxe art book, plus Funko Pop figures of Batman, the Joker, and Harley Quinn. But it really is Harry, Ron and Hermione for much of the film with just the odd interlude to see what Voldemort is up to. This is one box set that pays ultimate respect to its source material, and one of the coolest and most pristine collections in the industry. And just when I thought that the Harry Potter films couldn’t get any darker, they manage to find new shades of black, new degrees of de-saturation for the penultimate film. As the conclusion to the Harry Potter saga, a story that fans would have been eagerly anticipating for years, I can’t imagine how deflating the cinema experience must have been, watching the start of the movie in 2010, and then having to wait until 2011 for the end.So we get the cinema shortcut of newspaper headlines spelling out significant plot developments and as a shorthand for the clock turning. I was expecting to be hit with the usual instant Blu-ray upgrade sense of wonder as I usually get with Blu-rays, before starting to pick nits, but not this time, as the foggy start to The Philosopher’s Stone became indicative of one of the transfer’s weaknesses, and it wasn’t until daylight at the Dursleys that I saw the detail, colour definition, and pop that I was expecting. When Harry Potter learns on his eleventh birthday that he is, in fact, a wizard, he is quickly swept up into the spellbinding world of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry alongside new best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. The next best thing, as I know that time is often at a premium, is to watch them over successive nights.
The actual narrative that we do see on screen is held together by this movie trickery, but it still feels like a Cliff Notes version of the story. The Harry Potter movie collection is very affordable on Blu-ray, and it will provide entertainment for children of all ages, including us middle-aged children, and you might as well pick up a copy, rather than wait for a better transfer of The Philosopher’s Stone, the one film in the series that really needs one. Audio Descriptive track if you need it, while optional English subtitles are available, as well as HOH English subtitles. It has a good pace to it, and enthusiastic performances from its main cast, who are really getting the hang of this acting thing by now. Put it all together, and you do have a good movie, with a beginning, middle and end, with Part 2 serving as the climax to Part 1’s build up.
I suspect that it was never meant to be, it was instead supposed to grab the fans of the books at the age when what they wanted to see was the book faithfully recreated on screen. Of all the Harry Potter adaptations that I have seen so far, or at least watched with my full attention on the screen, not distracted by pesky adverts, The Prisoner of Azkaban feels the most like a genuine feature film. The Goblet of Fire' (2005) sees Harry board the train to Hogwarts School, where he will attend his fourth year of magical education. Updated on December 16th, 2021 by Derek Draven: There have been many amazing box sets that have been released in recent years.
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