Harry Potter: The Complete 8-Film Collection

Product Information

For the week that ended on October 15th, Universal Pictures Home Entertainment's Jurassic World: Dominion topped the Blu-ray-only chart, just edging out Walt Disney Home Entertainment's Thor: Love and Thunder, which dropped to second place in its third week. As such, in such a fantastical and imaginative universe, it’s emotionally a very realistic story, and one that is very easy to engage with as a viewer. 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. Yet when the names are pulled from the Goblet of Fire, against all the rules a fourth champion is revealed, Harry Potter. You can’t do that with Harry Potter, and the concern is that you wind up with a film like The Philosopher’s Stone, which lack a narrative arc, and instead feel like a series of loosely connected vignettes, a sketch show made into a movie.

They weren’t killed in a car crash, they fell afoul of a dark wizard, Voldemort, a wizard whose power waned and vanished when he tried and failed to kill Harry, leaving him with a lightning shaped scar on his forehead. At Hogwarts, Harry learns that there are still good wizards in the world, like his new friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley and the rest of the students of house Gryffindor, and there are some not so good, such as his soon to be rival Draco Malfoy of house Slytherin. This fourth year of the Harry Potter cycle is when teenagers start being obnoxious to each other, on top of becoming painfully thin-skinned, and that is reflected in where the characters are. The box set include the movies on 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray, and come with a special surprise for fans (in the US).It includes the extended edition of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets on Blu-ray. Perhaps it helps that I only read the book once, and have long since forgotten what probably had to be cut out to get it into a manageable screenplay, but The Half-Blood Prince is the first Harry Potter adaptation since The Prisoner of Azkaban to really feel like a feature film that belongs on the screen, not on the page. Of course I’ll begin by re-evaluating The Philosopher’s Stone, thirteen years after I first reviewed the DVD for this site.

There’s little to fault here, with clear and audible dialogue, vivid and effective action sequences making excellent use of the surround soundstage (the letters flying around the Dursleys on Sunday are an impressive sound), and John Williams providing a memorable and appropriate score for the first film that will grow and be built upon in the subsequent films.

Also the film has a distinctive tone to it, a sense of ominous foreboding and suspense that permeates the story, and the darker look of the film. Catalan, Spanish and Czech, with subtitles in those languages, Arabic, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Icelandic, and Slovenian. When I first read The Goblet of Fire, I was fully convinced that there was no way that this story could be told in less than two movies. Extras: Language(s): English, Hard of Hearing Subtitles: English, Interactive Menu, Screen ratio 1:1.

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. Black was a fervent supporter of Voldemort in the dark days, and Harry learns that Sirius holds him responsible for the dark lord`s demise. As it is, it’s difficult for me to judge this film on its own, and I really have to watch the final instalment also to see how well The Deathly Hallows fares on its way to the screen. It’s three people facing adversity together, and the strains it puts on their otherwise previously solid friendship. What`s worse is that the Dementors of Azkaban have been unleashed to affect his recapture, and have taken up residence around Hogwarts, but also seem to take an uncommon and debilitating interest in Harry.

Audio Descriptive track if you need it, while optional English subtitles are available, as well as HOH English subtitles. 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.