Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

[desoto_hia873]

I saw it this morning. :-)

A friend of my cousin's (well, actually, we have a slightly more complicated history than that, but I won't go into it now) works for the local paper and has access to tickets to press screenings. Knowing that my cousin and I are both HP fans, he got us two passes. Cool.

Can there be such a thing as spoilers for a movie based on a book that's been out for several years?



I liked this film better than Prisoner of Azkaban. Condensing any of the books into a 2-3 hour movie is a mighty task and I didn't think it worked all that well for PoA. The time travel plot was too disjointed - I felt vaguely confused by the end of it and I've read the book three times.

GoF was close to three hours long and this is a good thing because there's alot of plot in there. Even so, alot of that alot of plot had to be left out: Rita Skeeter had little more than a cameo appearance; most of the Barty Crouch Jr. plot got axed - we saw Barty Crouch Sr.'s body in the Forbidden Forest, but it was never explained what happened to him or why (in fact, the body wasn't even identified); there was very little shown of the day-to-day life at Hogwarts; very little of Harry's struggles to prepare himself for each challenge; and Fleur wasn't even mentioned as being part Veela.

All that being said, I think they did the best job they could with it. It made more sense than PoA and, cinematically, they did justice to very difficult things like the Quidditch World Cup. It's a pretty good film and, of the four, the one I'd most like to see again.

I don't much care for the new Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) - his Dumbledore is emphatic and flourishy and speaks quickly and very loudly. I liked Richard Harris's understatedness better. But that's just me.

The age of the actors is becoming a bit of a problem. Daniel Radcliffe has astonishingly hairy legs for a supposed 14 year-old and Rupert Grint is positively buff. That lad has been working out and has the biceps to show for it. Still, suspension of disbelief will take you a long way if you let it and I'd rather continue to see them than start over with a new Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

All in all, a good film and worth seeing.



Afterwards, my cousin told me that we *have* to take part in the events of release night for the final book. HAVE to, she said. It's a global thing and she wants to be a part of it, she said.

Heh. Methinks she's just discovered fandom.

Comments

[sp23.livejournal.com]

I was really disappointed with PofA when I saw it. I'd just finished reading the book for the first time and so it was too fresh in my mind for me to enjoy the movie. It's been long enough since I read Goblet that I'm sure I'll enjoy the movie.

[desoto-hia873.livejournal.com]

I really think it's a better movie than the last. But I also think they won't be able to do true justice to the books until they make a mega-mini-series about each and every one. :-)