Release Date:  June 4, 2004
Rating:  PG (for frightening moments, creature violence and mild language)
Genre:  Adventure/Family/Fantasy
Run Time: 135 minutes
Director:  Alfonso Cuarón
Actors:  Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Gary Oldman, David Thewlis, Michael Gambon, Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson

Most of the media are calling the third and latest installment in the Harry Potter series “dark.” They aren’t kidding.

Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliff) is 13 and back at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry along with Hermione (Emma Watson) and Ron (Rupert Grint). Other familiar faces include Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane), the gentle giant hired to teach on the care of magical creatures with his curious hippogriff, an eagle crossed with a horse.

Unhappy at home with his aunt and uncle, Harry becomes incensed when another aunt makes unkind comments about his parents. Disobeying school rules about the use of magic outside school, Harry blows her up like a balloon, causing her to float away. Fearing punishment, he then runs away but is picked up by the Night Bus, which escorts him to the Leaky Cauldron Pub. There, Harry is rebuked – but not disciplined – by the Minister of Magic, then set off to school.

Before the students arrive, their train is accosted by Dementors, avenging spirit guards that suck the souls from people. The Dementors are searching for a convicted murderer named Sirius Black (Gary Oldman), an evil wizard who has escaped from Azkaban Prison in order to kill Harry. Black was involved in killing Harry’s parents and is very dangerous. Professor Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) allows the Dementors to come to Hogwarts to protect the students, but warns the children not to go near them, because they will destroy anyone in their way. Strangely enough, they attack Harry several times, without explanation. After several adventures, Harry, Hermione and Ron eventually come face-to-face with Sirius and several other “shape-shifting” creatures who have tricked them.

The “Harry Potter” phenomenon has made a billionaire out of its creator, author J.K. Rowling, a French teacher and single mother from England who hit pay dirt when her third novel was published. Now the wealthiest and highest-paid author in the world, Rowling has sold more than 80 million books, and the movies made from her books have all been blockbusters. The quality of her stories cannot be denied; she is an excellent writer with an amazingly creative imagination, and her films reflect this. But her occult worldview, which is of great concern to Christians, teaches that humans are the ones who judge good and evil – and that we can and should use supernatural power to influence both.