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"Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" While "Shrek 2" set the record for reaching $300 million in sales by doing it in 18 days, "Harry Potter: The Prisoner of Azkaban" hit the market and also did well. As we said about the Harry Potter: The Chamber of Secrets "Harry Potter: The Prisoner of Azkaban," deserves a neutral to somewhat positive rating. "Harry Potter: The Prisoner of Azkaban" is almost the best we can expect from bourgeois liberalism's films for children. It's pointedly anti-fascist--giving the boot to eugenics in the opening scene, where Aunt Marge talks about the parents of Harry Potter in a disparaging way as reflecting on Harry. Many critics said this was the best of the three Potter films, probably because it has the most adult depth--by which I am totally excluding sex. Australians heard that children under 15 should not see the film. That seems a bit excessive to us. 13 should definitely be OK. There continue to be lots of curios and special effects. As we said before in the "Chamber of Secrets" review, the fantasy element--including going back in time--is heavy. This can lead to escapism, but there is recognizable struggle that offsets the losses, so let it not be said that MIM opposes all fantasy, especially not now. The state is still unable to eradicate crime despite all the wizards running about and it errs by putting in prison Sirius Black, framed by someone who later changed himself into a rat. Bourgeois democracy is not developed yet, because Sirius Black does not have a trial before being sent off to prison. The propaganda machine goes into overdrive to demonize a totally innocent man and he nearly dies for it. The guards in charge of Sirius Black are "Dementors" who suck the life out of people, but Sirius Black builds his fearsome reputation by getting by them all. Dementors lower the quality of life of everyone in the kingdom. They have one-track minds to pursue their quarry and they are not able to distinguish the innocent from their quarry. Their presence even damages business at bars. Thus, the script-writer is a shrewd persyn aware of the prison mentality's effect on the whole society. We would only add that in real life Dementors would have unions, and those unions would make sure that more prisons get built, guards hired and secrecy built in connection to any abuses by prison guards, most recently including two prison guards who went to Iraq and continued their profession at Abu Ghraib.
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