Harry ignores warnings not to return to Hogwarts, only to find the school plagued by a series of mysterious attacks and a strange voice haunting him. (IMDb)
The plot is much meatier this time around: Introduced immediately, it’s a tantalizing monster mystery with connections to the past that grows darker with each passing scene, although it could have been explained with a little more subtlety. New bits of magic and characters bring more humour (see the Polyjuice Potion escapade and the outrageous Lockhart) but also more awkwardness (nearly every spell seems to do the same thing). Another unearned too-happy ending caps it off on cheesy note.
7/10 (Good)
joel watches movies 
The first two Potter films are by far the weakest of the series, in my opinion. Both are definitely catered more towards children, with, as you said, “unearned happy endings”. Prisoner of Azkaban is when things started turning great. Excellent review!
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I personally didn’t like some of the writing in a couple of the later ones (as you’ll read in the coming days!) but the films definitely got a lot more mature (and better looking) starting with PoA, for sure.
thanks so much for reading and for the kind words, brett! 🙂 stay tuned for my reviews of the rest of them!
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