Okay, so this movie is definitely not the best movie ever, but in my opinion it’s the best of all the Harry Potter movies I’ve seen. I’ll give you one major reason why: No Quidditch!! Other than the very first scene, which was real quick. So I didn’t have to put up with anymore 15 minute sequences of Harry chasing down some stupid flying ball and wasting my life. I think the whole quidditch thing is hands down the dumbest thing in the whole Harry Potter realm, and not having that in this movie/book was a big plus for me.
A lot of Harry Potter fanatics will tell you that this movie sucked because it wasn’t as good as the book. Well of course it wasn’t. If you’re expecting a sparkling replica of the 600+ page book, then don’t go see this. But I was able to really enjoy myself. Now I should note that I read the Goblet of Fire once, three years ago, and though it is by far my favorite of all the books, I confess I have probably forgotten most of it. However, I was quite struck by how HUGE Ron is. He’s gonna be like 6’5 in the next one. And apparently Hermione is a bad actress, but I thought she was pretty hot. Oh, that doesn’t mean she’s a good actress? But what about Kirsten Dunst or Keira Knightly? You’re joking right?
Anyway, so I guess that’s all I really have to say. I enjoyed myself, and considering how weak the other Harry Potter movies are, I think this is probably the best one, and Ralph Fiennes is AMAZING as Voldemort, be it ever so brief. Bravo on that casting. So turn off your inner eye secretly reading through each line of the book going “hey, they didn’t do that right” or “I always pictured Wormtail as my old shop teacher,” and enjoy. I did.
Overall Rating: 3.25/5
Warning: obsesive Harry Potter content…read at your own risk.
Since you all know I was very dissapointed in the movie already, I’d like to point out a few things that I actually was pleased with when watching it.
1. Morgan already mentioned the fine casting and performance of Voldemort’s character. I agree he was well played.
2. The dance practice scene with Prof. McGonagal was very funny and well chosen. That scene does not happen in the book, but was a great scene to watch in the movie. This unfortunately was one of the few creative successful tweaks made to the story in my opinion.
3. Fred and George were very funny and well written without taking over the story too much.
4. Keeping Neville and Ginny’s characters around a little bit was very important considering the big roles they play in the next movie.
5. The students are wearing robes again in Hogwarts…I hated the “cool” street clothes look from the last movie, it detracted from the magical world feel that I love about being at Hogwarts.
Some annoying things:
1. They set up the whole Rita Skeeter character and didn’t follow through. I think they should either have backed off some screen time and alluded to her articles in the paper, or they should have seen that plot line through more. As it was they tried to comprimise and as a result stuck Hermoine in the champions tent at the first task and that scene turned into poo.
2. Dumbledore’s character doesn’t play right to me for some reason. I’m not talking about comparing the new Dumbledore to the the original, I’m talking about feeling emotionally detatched from him through the last two films. This does not bode well for the next 2 movies where Harry’s relationship with Dumbledore takes on vital importance.
3. I’m not sure off the top of my head how they would change this given the time constraints but the whole Crouch plot line was very watered down. The took out the very important scene of Harry seeing Barty Crouch on the marauder’s map and then letting Moody borrow it. They killed off Barty Crouch Sr. because he started recognising Moody as being fake rather than him knowing that Voldamort was getting stronger and trying to warn Dumbledore. Again, it’s hard to find time to explain all of it, but the result was they lost some really deep thematic plot as a tradeoff for fitting more scenes from the book into the movie. I think the movie suffered as a whole because of this.
4. The pace of the story telling is so fast, that I never felt emotionally connected to what was happening. The climactic scene in the graveyard where Voldemort comes back felt 50 times less intense than the same scene in the book to me even though I thought that that scene was portrayed very well in the movie.
HUGE BLUNDERS at the end of the movie:
1.Crouch Jr. doesn’t get killed off by a dementor before he can tell Fudge what he told Dumbledore this directly leads to… 2. No hint of the beginning of Fudge’s refusal to believe Harry and battling Dumbledore over the truth of what happened.
3. The Hogwarts students not reacting AT ALL when Dumbledore tells them how Cedric dies. Staggeringly bad interpretation of that scene considering Dumbledore just saying the name Voldemort would in itself floor most of the room.
With the mangling of the end of the story, I think they’ve dug themselves a HUGE plot hole to dig out of at the beginning of film 5, which will be an even harder story to tell in under 3 hours than this one.
On morgan’s scale I think I’d give it half marks…2.5 out of 5. Sorry for the book.
I just wanted to say, that I don’t look at this movies as “not as good as the book.” I look at it as awkwardly edited and poorly paced. We race through some scenes and then spend a half-hour with a dragon (which by the way is a minor plot point and exibits no dialogue. I was uncomfortable watching the movie, It me feel like I was missing something the whole time. There are some good moments, and they brought me some joy, but all in all I would say the movie is just below par even for a Potter movie.
Very very good review Tim (and Karl). That sheds a lot of light on the subject of why you didn’t like it. I agree with all the things you pointed out, I guess I just didn’t really think about it when it happened, but I can definitely see why that would leave you a little empty. Agreed. Man, that movie sucked. Thanks for taking the joy out of my life, Tim 😉
At least your football team’s doing well 😉
I’d recommend reading the book again especially since you liked it so much the first time. It’s really an amazingly well crafted book, especially on a re-read. I think I now like it better than the third one which used to be my favorite of the bunch.
Morgan, you rock. Not that you wouldn’t if I hadn’t been reading most of this post and mentally saying, “Yes! EXACTLY!” to most of it….
The dragon scene was the Quidditch scene of this movie. Snore.
My favorite book was Order of the Pheonix(sp?) The constant Harry hormonal anger is irritating, but the many wicked cool action sequences make up for it.
Order of the Phoenix was my favorite, too. I think Umbridge is the most creatively imagined, repulsive villian that Rowling has yet made. In my mind, the success of the 5th movie hangs on the casting of Umbridge. Oh, and whether those pesky kids step up Sure, Emma Watson is a looker! But she can’t act! I agree with Suzanne that she does not understand her character apart from being “the girl of the bunch.”
order of the phoneix was my least favoritve of the last few… way to long for the uber cool fight scene (which was great) but it was 600 pages of nothing harry and umbridge, more writing and harry thinking about the dream booo-ring. 😉
On the last film, I liked it, there was some massive hacking but I no longer expect them to express all the subplots in the movie, there just is too much to do. THey did it in the first film, which was longer and a worse film. I also miss the Crouch/mad eye play because that was really fun but how do you show that without adding 30 minutes of just two people talking? (One of whom is harry who as was pointed out before can’t act his way out of a paper bag. that’s what you get when you pick them young I guess.)
I thought the plot line worked, it felt a little sparse at times but so do the books. Its christmas then lo and behold suddenly its march? I think the directoral license can be taken personally, plus there is alot that happens here, alot that can’t go on the screen.
Finally, praise the lord Skeeter doesn’t appear more, she drove me nuts in the book and I got very tired of hearing the kids complain about her. I’m glad she had a bit part, though with Tim I think it would have been better to cut her althogether, than leave her half in. (Her preformance was great but the character makes me want to slap he). anyway, my two cents.
Two things that
Wait… Did you just say Keira Knightley was a bad actress?
Pistols at dawn! Choose your second..