Summary:
The fourth entry in the Harry Potter series pits him up against his greatest challenge yet: The Triwizard Tournament.
My Thoughts:
I’ve been rereading the Harry Potter series for the first time since ‘Deathly Hallows’ was released in 2007, and whenever I’ve finished one of the books, I’ve been rewatching the film adaptations as well. I’ve often said that great art can be viewed/read at multiple times in your life and it will have different effects on you based on where you are in life’s journey; the Harry Potter books are undoubtedly great art. Rowling created a world that leaps off the page, but more importantly, it grows in maturity as the characters get older; it’s a coming of age story that comes of age itself. Rereading the books has led to some great rediscoveries and realizations of just how great Rowling’s writing is; rewatching the movies has, for the most part, made me look forward to the future when we’ll inevitably get some remakes.
These movies are not terrible (“Prisoner of Azkaban” is still absolutely delightful), but many of them have started to feel a bit dated, and it’s only been fourteen years since this film was in cinema. I predict, in ten years time, these films will still be considered classics, but they’ll be looked at like the BBC adaptations of the Narnia series from the late eighties.
“HARRY, DID YOU PUT YOUR NAME INTO THE GOBLET OF FIRE?!”
Boy wizard Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe, “The Woman in Black”) returns to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for his fourth year, though this year will be far different than any of the other years he’s attended for Hogwarts is hosting the Triward Tournament. Harry’s name is mysteriously entered into the Goblet, and he is forced to compete in the deadly tournament against the other champions Cedric Diggory (Robert Pattinson, “High Life”), Fleur Delacour (Clemence Posey, “In Bruges”), and Viktor Krum (Stanislav Yanevski, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I”). As the tournament gets under weigh, Harry and his friends Hermione (Emma Watson, “Beauty and the Beast (2017)”) and Ron (Rupert Grint, “Moonwalkers”) try to figure out clues that might help Harry survive the deadly tasks.
“Goblet of Fire” does a lot of things right, but a lot of the right things are lifted directly from the source material; it’s got to be easier to make a decent movie out of a great book than it is to make a decent movie out of a middling book. “Goblet” is a turning point in the Harry Potter series; it gets a heck of a lot darker in a flash. I love this turn in the series, it’s when Harry makes the leap from boy to man. However, that change doesn’t really come until the last third of this film, and for most of the movie, Harry still acts like a boy, and the way director Mike Newell approaches this is done with middling prowess at best.
Perhaps we’re a bit spoiled having Alfonso Cuaron direct “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.” Out of all of the Harry Potter films, I think “Azkaban” will be the only one of these first four to really stand the test of time. Newell’s directing style is far better than Chris Colombus, who directed “Sorcerer’s Stone” and “Chamber of Secrets”, but he’s far less impressive than Cuaron. Colombus tended to lock down his shots and give us boring medium or two shots that never showed off the sets or production design. Cuaron’s direction was great, I can’t really complain about that movie too much. Newell doesn’t know how to direct scenes with multiple people. When it’s only the main characters talking amongst themselves, the direction is fine, but when we add in other characters many of them lurk in the background waiting patiently to say their lines; it feels incredibly unnaturally. There are also plenty of scenes where Newell doesn’t really know what to do with the side characters, so he just has them applaud and cheer, and that’s all well and good at the Tournament, but why do we have characters cheering and applauding inside Hogwarts for relatively menial things?
I feel like some of the things they chose to include in the film vs the things they chose to omit were kind of odd. As much as I liked Miranda Richardson (“Spider (2002)”) as Rita Skeeter, they didn’t really delve into her storyline, so she felt more shoehorned in than anything else. Why did we reveal Barty Crouch (David Tenant, Amazon Prime’s “Good Omens”) was the one to conjure the dark mark after the Quidditch World Cup? Why did Neville (Matthew Lewis, “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince”) give Harry the Gillyweed? There are hundreds of nit-picky things I could get to, but honestly, I know that mostly it’s the HP book fan in me that gets irritated; the cinephile in me just wanted this movie to be shorter.
Pacing has ALWAYS been an issue with Harry Potter films. There’s not really much of a traditional narrative structure to the Harry Potter books. He goes to school and putzes around for a bit until eventually, inevitably discovers something is wrong and then gets ready to face it. There are lots of parts of the books that are devoted entirely to world building, and in the books it feels flushed out and really adds to the detail of the HP universe. A lot of the side parts in this film, the parts that are meant to expand the world, are put into the film, but the details simply glossed over, so they feel rather tawdry and pointless in the end.
(SPOILERS FOLLOW)
The final third of this film really does a lot to redeem most of the lesser parts. I think Ralph Fiennes (“The Constant Gardener”) is perfectly cast as Voldemort, and I’m glad they didn’t skirt around the bloodier bits of the spell Wormtail (Timothy Spall, “Secrets and Lies”) uses to resurrect the dark lord. While the film has a lot of cheesier moments in the beginning of the film, the grim and solemn way it ends gives the film a far more mature feeling. Newell handles the change in tone well; not perfectly, but well enough that I felt confident in bumping my rating of this movie from a 3/5 to a 3.5/5.
Verdict:
After this film, the Harry Potter universe enters into the David Yates phase. Yates has directed every Harry Potter movie since this entry, so obviously the producers think he’s doing a good job. It’s been a while since I’ve rewatched any of the last four HP movies, so I do look forward to revisiting them…
However, as I want to reread the books before I watch those movies, and as I tend to get bored if I spend too long in any literary world, I’m taking a break from Harry to reread Stephen King’s “The Shining” (and review his poorly-received 4.5 hour miniseries from ‘97- Ugh! The things I watch for this site…) and read “Doctor Sleep” for the first time before that film hits theaters in November. The rest of the Harry Potter reviews will come, dear reader, but it might be a while.
I can’t imagine anyone is really chomping at the bit to read those anyways…
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