| JK should make Peeves the main villain of Book 7, just to piss the movie people off. |
[Nov. 21st, 2005|12:16 am] |
| [ | Spirits |
| |  sore | ] |
| [ | Voices |
| | Harry and the Potters - The Wrath of Hermione | ] |
Huh. I really, really liked Goblet of Fire, but in my review for The Torch all I could come up with was complaints. I'll put up the article, and then the rest of my notes in my usual unorganized fashion, and then if anyone wants to we can have civilised discussion about it (lolz).
From the very first shot, of a hall of skulls, it's easy to tell that Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is no kids' movie. Harry and company's fourth movie adventure keeps an even darker tone than the previous Prisoner of Azkaban, while still leaving room for plenty of jokes scattered throughout.
In Goblet of Fire, students from two other magical schools (Beauxbatons from France and Durmstrang from Bulgaria) arrive at Hogwarts to compete in the world-famous and sometimes deadly Triwizard Tournament. As the name suggests, three wizards traditionally compete in the tournament - one from each school. Hopeful participants over 17 years of age submit their names into the magical goblet of fire where they are later drawn. Mysteriously, however, after selecting the three champions Cedric Diggory, Fleur Delacour and Viktor Krum, a fourth name comes out of the goblet - underage Harry Potter.
From there, the champions must undertake a series of tasks to decide the winner of the Triwizard Cup. While the tournament and tasks provide much of the action in the movie, they are ultimately just another piece of the puzzle in the mystery of the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, "Mad-Eye" Moody, and the revival of the evil Lord Voldemort.
The pace of the movie is often frantic, jumping from one major point in the book to another. Sure, it's difficult to condense 734 pages into 157 minutes, but it seems that some sequences drag on for too long when everything else is rushed. Also, because of all the cut and reduced subplots, characters like reporter Rita Skeeter and Hagrid's love interest Madame Maxine are rendered useless.
The lightning-fast action of the movie means that many of the charming touches from the previous movies have also been left out. There are no fanciful rearranging staircases or scenes of Quidditch in Goblet of Fire; the magic in this movie is much more serious. What can be found are killing curses and dragon fights.
In addition to subplots, Quidditch, and time to stop and breathe in between events in the movie, by far the most important thing forsaken due to lack of time is character development. The audience already knows Harry, Ron, Hermione and Dumbledore from the first three movies, but what about the Triwizard champions just introduced? What about the new heroes and villains? We never get to know the new characters accompanying Harry through most of the movie, so we never actually care about them.
Despite the pacing problems (which are understandable due to the nature of the book), director Mike Newell creates a completely new mood for this movie compared to Chris Columbus on the first two movies and Alfonso Cuarón on the third movie. It's a shame that there is such an inconsistent mood within the series because of the constant change of directors (yet another new director, David Yates, will be directing Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix), but Newell's style works spectacularly in this film.
Fans of the books will love seeing the most powerful scenes of J. K. Rowling's book brought to the big screen. Those who haven't read the books may find themselves confused at numerous unexplained clues to the ending, but should enjoy the ride just the same. Although it feels rushed, overall it is the best Harry Potter movie yet and it gets a 9 out of 10.
And the rest of the notes:
-Moody's eye looked really tacky. Ew.
-Neville was so lovable. Aww.
-Weasly Twins = Hawt hawt hawt
-Dragon chase was way too long, time that could have been spent in other areas or at least showing the other dragons. They kind of weirdly evaded showing the Chinese Fireball, not even the miniature dragon.
-The graveyard scene scared the ever-living shit out of me in the book, and the movie did a fairly good job with it. It could have been creepier though.
-I was about to cry after Cedric died, during Dumbledore's speech.
-I didn't care about Fleur at all in this movie, and neither did anyone else. Other than Ron's "OMGZORS I asked her out" bit, there was no one completely fawning over her like they probably should have been.
-The Death Eaters' KKK hats were creepy. They're dumb silly costumes but those fucking pillowcases never cease to chill me.
-Re:Fleur "She's as much a fairy princess as I am" = ROFL from me. But again, that never came out. Fleur just kind of sat there.
-I'll say it again, the pacing sucked. That's basically half of what I wrote during the movie on my post-it notes. "Things go by too quickly", "no real sense of time", "little room for character development"
Like I said, I've got so many complaints in my brain but I really did like the movie a lot. I've read some fan responses that the filmmakers aren't looking at the long-term enough, and they're probably right. We'll see how it works out when all is said and done.
And PS: http://www.eskimolabs.com/hp/goblet.htm |
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