movies: harry potter and the goblet of fire

I went up to Ma's today to put up the Christmas tree (more on that tomorrow... I'm too tired to do two posts tonight... plus there's pictures), and after we were done with that and the wrapping of a few presents, we decided to go and see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire at the new Reading Cinema in Elizabeth.

For what kind of amounts to a "budget" theatre (at least that seems to be the way they market themselves), the place was seriously nice... a little Dante's Inferno in the decorating (red on red on pale grey with red and grey carpeting), but then, I like that...

Back to Harry...

I've just started the series again (in preparation of getting the new one for Christmas) and I've just begun the second book, and I definitely wanted to see Goblet of Fire before I got up to the book... that would have just messed with my head. Although unlike some people, I have no issue with reading the book a movie is based on either before or after I've seen it.

I kinda knew what to expect going in to Goblet of Fire... a seriously truncated plotline, shaven-headed eye candy... etc, etc... but I was still very impressed. Yes, they did compact the hell out of the storyline... whole entire subplots were excised, even if they ended up tying back into the main plot, and in places it did kind of feel like you needed to have read the books to get some of the stuff. Also they actually had to reorganise the existing plot to cover some of the plot holes... in the case of Neville and the Gillyweed, turning something that was expressly mentioned as not happening in the book, and using it to cover the plot that they had extracted (okay, that makes sense to me... it might not make sense to anyone else though).

The first ten minutes or so, at the Quidditch World Cup, were just AMAZING! It was a very visually full on, and compacted a large chunk of the book into a very short space of time, but it still had my mouth hanging open.

And I cried... the same place(s) I cried in the book... basically when he sees the ghosts, and then when he comes back to the school... Daniel Radcliffe gave a particularly heart-wrenching performance during that second scene I thought.

I love that they have a large number of the same supporting actors back time and again, particularly the dentally challenged (and suddenly very, very tall) Matthew Lewis as Neville and Devon Murray as Seamus... it keeps that feeling of this being a self contained world alive. Although with the truncated plot and the focus of both the book and the movie being on something other than the routine of the school, some of the regular characters like Snape, McGonagall and Malfoy didn't have much to do apart from add those recognisable faces to the backgrounds. Although one of the best uses for Snape is the scene where he keeps smacking Ron and Harry in the back of the head with a textbook... very funny to watch.

Still on characters... I'm still not fond of Michael Gambon's Dumbledore... the late Richard Harris did a MUCH better job in my opinion... he was more warm and caring and had this edge to him where you just knew he knew things... Gambon seem to have gone with "odd and slightly creepy" as his motivation for Dumbledore, and I think those scenes with him and Harry suffer as a result.

Other than the Krum flavoured eye candy mentioned above, honourable mentions also go to one of the Weasley twins (Oliver, James... one of you was looking kind of cute in various shots... the other not so much... of course it could have been both of you taking turns to have cute moments)... also Rupert Grint's shoulders, particularly the first shot we see him in, and Daniel's abs during the bathtub scene...

The other minor detail I noticed that bothered me in places was the lack of "background detail"... in the first three movies there seemed to be a lot of attention (and I would imagine no small part of the special effects budget) paid to the fact that people in paintings at Hogwarts move around... usually in shots containing artwork, there was some movement, or missing people, just as a general part of the colour of the scene. This time, possibly because of all the OTHER special effects they had to do, the animated paintings were reduced to particular cut-aways where a point was made of showing the painting move.

All in all though it was thoroughly enjoyable.

yani's rating: 3 Hungarian Horntails out of 5