As anyone who follows my year-end lists can attest, I firmly believe that it is possible for a film to be good yet still be overrated. So it is we come to the third Harry Potter film, which is often referred to as 'the only good one' or 'the arty one' or 'the only cinematic one' and other such rubbish. I am not going to get into the reasons why certain film critics and film snobs hold this third chapter is such high esteem compared to the others, but I'd wager that a big part of it comes from an elitist attitude towards original helmer Chris Columbus, combined with a certain snobbery directed in favor of director Alfonso Cuaron. Point being, while this third Harry Potter picture does branch out a bit in several positive directions, it also undermines itself and the eventual fifth film by failing to properly develop its most important new character. As a result of this, while it may be one of the more stand-alone of the pictures, it flirts with irrelevancy in the ongoing narrative despite technically jump-starting that very mythology.
