Movies

After a few days displeasure at not having been in attendance at the midnight showing as the movie opened, I finally got the chance to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

This is the movie based upon the fourth installment of J.K. Rowling's ever-popular series. In this volume we see Harry Potter compete in the Tri-Wizard Tournament and in the movie we see little else.

I will not launch into my usual diatribe about the slaughter of innocent literary beauty for the betterment of cinema. For once I will spare you. I am trying to get better. Happy now?

With more than 700 pages of text to tackle, it is just not feasible to bring it all to the screen. It is a fact of life, one that I am trying to come to terms with. I tried not to focus on things that were different between the two versions but one thing that I cannot get past is simply how some scenes are stretched out and I blame Peter Jackson and George Lucas for giving us this new trend towards panoramic views and hard dramatic pauses. My only question is why can't you eliminate one or sixteen of those and add just one of the details you left out of the book?

With the movie being so directed towards the Tri-Wizard Tournament, there is little time for the furtherance of any characters or relationships between them. Regarding characters, here are my feelings on the movie:

1) Just take out the scene with Sirius in the fire. You never once talked about who he was, nor the relationship he has with Harry. You rely solely on the viewers having seen the previous movie(s). Odds are they have seen them, I understand that. Not only was he not brought up later, but the only thing of note that he tells Harry during their talk is to keep his friends close. The irony of this comment was lost on Harry as he was feuding with Ron and it seemed lost on the audience as well. This scene was essentially worthless.

2) What a great job this movie did in really letting the two young men who play the twins shine! The boys who play Fred and George Weasley were very well used in this, the fourth movie. They are practically the only two characters who are allowed to blossom. These two have really done an outstanding job as Fred and George in all of the movies, but in number 4 more than in the others you see how charming they can be; a trait very central to the characters they portray.

3) What a dweeb Cedric Diggory was. He makes a huge splash at the beginning of the movie as our heroes head to the portkey on the hill. He drops out of the tree because...well I guess because that is what big men on campus do. His character is what I feel is best equated to the star high school quarterback. Athletic, good looking, charismatic... When introduced, you have the impression he is each of those things and more. As the movie progresses he bears more and more resemblance to Edward, Prince of Wales, son of Longshanks, King of England in the movie Braveheart. No, that is not a positive comparison.

4) While the argument can be made that Richard Harris was just better suited for the role than Michael Gambon, I think that is not the point. The point is that the character of Albus Dumbledore just does not translate well. Take him off the page and he is a fish out of water flopping around on screen. The Headmaster of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry has such a presence. Without having read the books you may not understand that there is no better word for it, and to use presence I find is rather perfect.

5) Though I cannot think of anything that could have been better, I thought the makeup done for He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was pretty weak. He is the most powerful wizard ever, right? Can't we make him look a little more intimidating and less like a slimy version of Beast in the old Beauty & The Beast TV series.

6) Was it me or did the students from Durmslang (Viktor Krum and his classmates) dress more like Klingons than Wizards?

Anyway, I did like the movie. I know after reading above you doubt that somewhat, but believe me. For at last the first five-sixths of it, the makers of the movie had me on the edge of my seat as the author does with each page of her books. For the remaining one-sixth...the movie just ended too abruptly. The tournament is over and all of a sudden so is the movie.

Overall: good film. The question was posed to me after seeing it was which of the four movies is my favorite. My answer is as non-committal as I always am. The movies are just too hard to compare. The first two really do such an excellent job of setting the mood of the fun and magic that is not just Harry Potter, but the fun and magic of the stories created by J.K. Rowling as well. Meaning that the stories are fun, but so is the feeling generated by them. I felt the need to separate the two for emphasis, get over it. The third movie (other than being not good) begins to really set the tone. The story moves much more quickly after the first two books. That was evident in the third movie and would have been if they had incorporated more of the story from the book in the fourth (ok ok, that was a cheap shot, I am sorry).

| Discuss it |