Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire Review
by Shane Burridge (sburridge AT hotmail DOT com)December 6th, 2005
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) 157m
You mean that the U.S. kept the original title? After Warner Brothers simplified the first Harry Potter film's title from "Philosopher's Stone" to "Sorcerer's Stone" for American audiences, I expected to see the fourth instalment hit theaters under the revamped title "Harry Potter and the CUP of Fire". But then again, Harry's target audience had gotten five years older since then, or at least smarter than the movie's marketing executives.
At the time of the first film I remarked that it would have been a bad idea for future films in the series to be transcribed verbatim from the later (and longer) novels, and that releasing them as two-part movies was unnecessary. I liked the storyline of the fourth book when I first read it - school champions competing in three hazardous challenges for a tournament cup - but the contest itself seemed like a minor element amongst all the other diversions that were going on in its hundreds of pages. Unlike books, however, movies have running times, and in the fourth screen adaptation of the series, the core of the story was preserved with a few subplots along the way (and one extended detour concerning a school ball, which basically acts as a complementary challenge among the three official tasks that Harry must face, so doesn't seem out of place).
I'm not alone in thinking that this is the first Potter film to improve on the book (which means that when I'm lynched by rabid J.K. Rowling fans I'll at least have company), not only because it maintains a sense of momentum and purpose by cutting to the chase, but also because it has an much stronger emotional backbone. I've never thought of Harry and his chums as anything but written characters, but here they seem more like real people (Ron even tells Harry to piss off at one point - too bad though that he didn't save it for Dobby-the-bloody-elf, a character in fantasy filmdom who has to be even more irritating than Jar-Jar Binks). Director Mike Newell and screenwriter Stephen Cloves had the benefit this time of working with a young cast who had become more experienced over the years and were playing characters written with a broader range. Interestingly, but I suppose appropriately, the elder members of the cast remained just as they began in PHILOSOPHER'S STONE (even Dumbledore is steadfastly Dumbledore, even though Michael Gambon took over the part after Richard Harris' passing). It's always the newcomers that stand out in each progressive film (think Kenneth Branagh in the second instalment) and GOBLET's addition to the faculty is Mad-Eye Moody, given life in a hilarious performance by Brendon Gleeson. Other regulars, such as Snape and Malfoy, have taken a back seat this time around - although readers of the books know that they play a major part in events to come (which is good news for those of us who enjoy Alan Rickman's performance as the bilious professor, especially as Rickman had reportedly wanted to quit the series after the second film). And of course, there is Voldemort, the villain of the stories who had only been spoken of but never seen until now. Ralph Fiennes has the thankless task of bringing this character to the screen, managing to play him not simply as some kind of hissing, eye-rolling cliche, but as a genuinely malicious megalomaniac.
I also opt this as the best-directed of the first four movies, which is a surprise since I wasn't expecting anything out of the ordinary from Mike Newell, who had done fine work with dramas and comedies, but nothing that would suggest he could tackle a big-budget fantasy with such veracity. His Quidditch game, early in the film, is an eye-opener that perversely cuts short after building up our anticipation. He makes up for it by later by having Harry in an airborne chase more dangerous than any pursuit of a Snitch could provide. Newell's film is full of spectacle, but he balances it with simple touches that help the fantasy seem more concrete. The shot that sticks in my mind more than any of the wonderful visual effects is an understated detail, played out wordlessly in the background of another scene, in which two girls in ball gowns comfort a third on the steps outside the dance hall. Of course Newell would add this grace note: has there ever been a school dance where an upset girl didn't need consoling from her friends, in either the mundane world or the magical? With three titles left in the series, the work done on GOBLET may have inspired a feeding frenzy of directors wanting to get in on the popular franchise, and with the bar raised by Newell in the fourth entry it would be reasonable to expect each subsequent film to get even better.
[email protected]
_________________________________________________________________ Looking for love? Check out XtraMSN Personals
http://xtramsn.match.com/match/mt.cfm?pg=channel&tcid=200731
More on 'Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire'...
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
