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Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire..Reviews (1 Viewer)

Dome Vongvises

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Just got back. A mixed bag to say the least. The film really flies from plot point to plot point. A good way to spend two and a half hours. A solid B.

The Good:
With the exception of the Weird Sisters, they nailed the Yule Ball. They did an excellent job presenting the events before and after the Quidditch World Cup (but not the match itself). I was really impressed with the Hungarian Horntail sequence.

The Bad:
As I said before, this movie moves fast. Almost too fast. We jumped from plot point to plot point, and it really feels disjointed. Also, I felt like this film lacked the magic of the first three movies. I was kind of disappointed by the graveyard scene. There wasn't anything foreboding about it although they captured the violence very well. I felt like I was watching a staged play during this sequence.

As a movie, it was alright. As an adaptation, it was amazing they did convert all that text into a limited movie experience. In short, they didn't knock it out of the park, but got a nice base hit instead.

But boy does it feel like they cut out a lot of stuff that "flavored" the book.
 

Tino

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Can a MOD perhaps split off the reviews in this thread into an **Official** review thread so that we can discuss the film without spoilers?

Thanks
 

Simon Massey

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I guess I must be one of the few who now prefers Gambon to Harris as Dumbledore. Harris was great, but Gambon is the one who IMO, nails Dumbledore as a HEADMASTER of a boarding school. And as the situation worsens as the stories progress I think there is a need to move Dumbledore from being so calm and gentle and all-knowing to something approaching worry and anxiety about what is going to happen.
 

Sean Laughter

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I posted this elsewhere, but I'm going to post it here with some slight alterations. I'll also spoilerize a few things I suppose, anyway:

-------------------------

Sorry, I haven't read this thread, but I just wanted to throw my two cents in about the film. First, short opinions about the first three films so you know where I'm coming from:

Stone & Chamber) Competent films that are maybe too literally faithful to relatively easily adaptable and not too long novels. Nothing particularly special about them, in either mood or look - the hallmark of Columbus (he's done the same disservice to "Rent" as well it seems).

PoA) A much better film product, but understandably dissapointing to some Harry-heads due to a few plot omissions. However, IMO, these plot omissions made the film work because you got plenty of time for alot of character development between Harry, Lupin, Sirius, Ron, and Hermione which meant that (to me at least) even given the relatively short running time the film didn't feel like it was ever rushing and everything flowed very nicely. I also felt Cuaron constructed a look and a Hogwarts that was amazingly magical and enchanting without resorting to an over reliance on bright DisneyWorld-esque coloring.

Now, to GoF. Everything about the film but the ending is VERY wrong. Thankfully, they weren't scared to cut any number of subplots from the novel or the problem would have been magnified. I miss the character moments from PoA, everything is a race from one plot point to another, but the race never gels into a whole for me.

Much of this is fault of the novel transplanted onto the movie. GoF is my least favorite of the books, mainly because of the structure and the fact that even in the novel the tasks are little more than set pieces. In the novel this becomes plodding and drags the novel out for no real reason because you're waiting for the next task, but in the movie it dooms it to feeling rushed because they're trying to get through all three tasks and still get across some amount of the rest of the plot. Basically, the book has too much filler between tasks, and the movie has too little filler between tasks.

This will be highly unpopular, but I still say the second task should have either been cut completely, cut down to like a two minute thing, or been something going on the background as a secondary scene device while something else was going on, perhaps to inform some backstory for Grouch or something (you know, something's going on and in the background outside the castle you hear the task occurring and at the end of the scene you come back and see Harry lift Ron and the girl out of the water). The second task is a collosal waste of time in terms of information. The first task is thrilling and the third is necessary as a plot device leading to the climax, but the water task just lies there like a dead, wet dog.

The lack of alotted character time makes subplots like Hermione and Ron's spat and Hagrid's love affair woefully underdeveloped to the point where they should have been brave enough to just cut them altogether (at least with Hagrid).

In any case, the whole movie I was just thinking they were moving from plot point to plot point with the characters going nowhere, so when there's some kind of dramatic tension between them it just feels utterly fake and forced. Hermione and Ron's arc especially feels little better than what one can get out of a Nickelodeon teen show nowadays and I expected much better particularly after the wonderful stuff we got in PoA.

I also felt far too much backstory was left out that will be essential in OOTP - but if that film's structure is cleverly done it may not be an issue, so I'll reserve my judgment for a year or so.

Alright, some good things:

The Dragon CG matched or bettered the CG of Buckbeak in PoA. Of course, they're very different, but the Dragon was very well done IMO (how great the Dragon was just made me puke in disgust at how awful Wormtail's T-1000 hand looked near the end though
).

Dumbledore. I have read enough of the thread to notice people complaining about him, but this showed why I'm glad Gambon has the part now. Dumbledore becomes very physical in the next film and Harris would have never pulled it off. I don't remember how it was portrayed in the book, but I can certainly buy Dumbledore being somewhat frantic after Harry's name flies out of the Goblet, at that point it's clear something's gone terribly wrong, and with the DeathEaters active again I can see him finally being a bit more to the point.

The Ending/Climax. I'm talking about the graveyard scene actually. It seemed pretty faithful for the most part from what I remember. I'd sat through what I considered a pretty lifeless film to get here, so I'm at least glad it was an enjoyable scene to sit through.

Rita Skeeter. I'm always a fan of Miranda Richardson and it was fun to see her here. Small part obviously, but I was glad they wisely cut out that whole subplot of hers with her turning into a bug or whatever
and just made her comic relief.

Moody. I put him under "the good" mainly because I felt the performance was very good. I know more than a few people who will hate the fact that he never once says "CONSTANT VIGILENCE" in the movie though.

-----------------------------

I'm just going to elaborate on two things. Basically, I just felt the film didn't gel well. Like others have said, it just didn't flow and there were good scenes that didn't meld into a cohesive whole.

Finally, I see many people hate the look of the film. I would agree with this. To me, Cuaron struck the perfect balance in PoA, while Columbus was overly sentimental, and Newell way too drab.

PoA, while definately not as "cheery" in look as the first two films, was still immensely magical to me - the snow, the new grounds, and the fact that even though Cuaron toned down the color pallet there were still plenty of scenes where you got the impression of bright and sunny days and then on into the gorgeous winter.

Newell's film seemed to always be overcast and was it raining the whole movie? I felt like the entire film was stuck in the one Quiddich scene in PoA during the downpour. It was an attempt to mimic Cuaron's work and it just failed, I can't quite figure out why that is, it's just apparent by looking at the two films.
 

Andrew Bunk

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Saw this last night in a premium theater (no one under 21 admitted-yahoo!), and really enjoyed it.

My fiancee and I both found the changes to the film series that PoA introduced to be a bit jarring, but the darker look and tone really served this film well. This could wind up being my favorite of the series so far, but as it stands I still have a soft spot for Philosopher's Stone.

On the subject of Dumbledore, I am also not a big fan of Gambon in the role. Richard Harris' mere presence added a much needed gravity to the character, and I just don't think Gambon has that.

It's too bad they used John Hurt already as the wandmaker, as I think he could have actually pulled off Dumbledore nicely. He has that soft-spoken and kind of mysterious quality about him that always seems to be present in the Dumbledore of the books.

And I love Ralph Fiennes as Voldemort. Very menacing.
 

Holadem

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Not big Moody's demonstration of the Imperius curse either. To be filed under "completely useless and detrimental" change.

It was a complete misrepresentation of what the curse does. It doesn't lift stuff in the air, it doesn't control living beings in that sense.

Did non-readers actually realize what was going on in that scene? If I didn't know any better, I would have thought Moody was simply lifting the Spider accross the room, much like he did with Ferret-Malfoy, and would have been wondering what was so unforgiveable about that.

The curse is used to control minds, to put people under total control of the attacker. Instead of waisting time and money animating a CGI spider, controlling a student as it was in the books gets the point accross much better.

Sometimes you have to wonder what goes on in the minds of these script writers :rolleyes.

--
H
 

andrew markworthy

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Not sure about that. To Brit audiences at least, John Hurt is irresistably linked to three things - Caligula in I,Claudius, Quentin Crisp in The Naked Civil Servant and that guy with severe dyspepsia in Alien. Not sure how we would be perceived as kindly old Dumbledore. ;)
 

Nathan V

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In my opinion-

Best film of the series so far. The first two were clunky book-on-tape snoozefests, due to to Chris Columbus and exposition-heavy scripts; the third film was rather excellent, drenched with atmosphere and style, mainly due to Cuaron and his exciting camera work; the new film is the first to really develop and humanize the characters. The scenes and situations before and especially right after the Yule Ball sequence were outstanding. The frustration conveyed by all 3 characters towards the end and after the Ball are my favorite moments in any of the 4 films. Newell likes playing with focal length, and there's some good handheld stuff as well. The cast is outstanding, they really cleaned out the British character-actor crowd. Theatres in London must've been empty for months. Fienees is incredible, and I thought the gravyard scene was terrific. It's nice to see the actors improve their skills with each film. The film must surely be incomprehensible without having read the book (which I finished just hours before seeing the film), and the subsequent complaints by members about how much exposition is really necessary brings up an important point- are films independent entities, or are they to be viewed as complementary to their genre and source material? Clearly Kloves feels the latter.

A very high 3.5 stars from me.

Still though, I wish these films weren't obligated to make money. I wish they could make some really radical artistic decisions with the material, really take the material and go somewhere with it. I'm waiting for Martin Scorsese to take on one of these, and turn it into something about poor black kids on the lower East Side.

Regards,
Nathan
 

Bill Griffith

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I really enjoyed the movie, Having read all the books and listened to them on CD several times (On the road quite a bit lately) I was looking forward to this movie more than any of the others. the only book in my mind that tops it is the 6th one.

So,
Happy to see all the important stuff, unfortunate they couldn't have made this 3 or 3 and half hours long to stuff in the final chapters a bit better (The chapter where Dumbledore was argueing with a stubborn Fudge about You know Who's return), But when I think back on what they could have removed, I wouldn't want anything removed, just make the movie longer.

The three main characters are really doing a good job now, while Granger and Ron were doing well last movie I felt Harry could still use some improvement, but have no complaints this time around.

What I don't like about the movie is the turn Dumbledores charater is making. i don't mind a bit of a change in a character, but dumbledore never lost his composure in the books, nor do I ever get the feeling

he would lay a hand on a student and push them up against the wall while yelling at them


This just isn't in his character, I don't mind the actor, he pulls off looking like a wizard well enough, but he's not making me feel like this is the only person Voldemort fears. The first guy did it, but this guy isn't doing it, and I don't think its just because of the way they are making his character behave.


As for the shoring on the big screen, the picture quality did seem a bit dark, probably intentional but the sound was horrible. A couple of instances when switching scenes the music would come on way to loud than after 10 or 15 seconds you would hear a sharp drop in volume of the music, on the order of several Db or so, than it would go on a play for a bit longer, than some vocals would come in. Very distracting and not what I would expect from a movie of this caliber.

All in all though I'm happy I paid my money and can hardly wait until the next book and movie come out.

Are the 3 main characters coming back for OOTP, or is it not decided yet?
 

Dome Vongvises

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Actually, I think it serves to prove the strength of Harry's moral fiber.

RE: Gambon as Dumbledore

I thought Gambon did a much better job of Dumbledore in POA. I didn't like his Dumbledore in this one.
 

Adam_S

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I really like Gambon's Dumbledore in both films, Richard Harris was great with the look and gravitas wtih all the subtleties that comes with a century of wisdom and a still razor sharp mind but Gambon has the spryness and tempered wary veteren qualities of a leader and long time school master.

I don't think either fully embodies everything Dumbledore in the book is, but they're both 'getting' Dumbledore, they are different people with different directors and therefore privilege different aspects of him. Dumbledore putting Harry up against the wall was a delightful surprise because it'd be a good way to shock some information out of Harry and it showed a great edge to Dumbledore's character. I can't wait to see the end of Order of the Phoenix, it should be amazing.

out of curiosity, how many scenes in the movies have there been when harry was not in some way present? such as the conference of the adults scene added into Goblet of Fire. That was possibly the most jarring departure for me, but I understood why the filmmakers felt they needed to make it clear why the adults had to leave Harry in the tournement. Snape's part in that scene is fascinating considering events in book Six.
 

Bill Griffith

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I think the creative license went a bit to far here, as I can't remember an instance in any of the books where Dymbledore lost it enough to physically harm a student. (Not saying I disagree with that in real life, just saying that it is not part of his character)
 

Holadem

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That's the biggest offender. DD would never lose his cool like that. Again, his coolness and quiet authority is what defines him. OK, I am sounding like a broken record now, I just hate it when key characters are screwed around with for no good reason I can fathom, much more so than plots. It's extremely frustrating because all of sudden, you're looking at a stranger. Given the choice, I would rather see beloved characters in alternative or unknown stories than see strangers in a familiar story. That's what it feels like whan a key character is changed (Faramir anyone?).

Also, there isn't an ounce of chemistry between Harry and this Dumbledore. This relationship is key to the story, and that's definitely something the first two movies nailed.

Contrast Dumbledore with Snape:

The part where he pushes the kid's heads down was a riot. While a complete fabrication, it works because it is in character. A good example of creative license that actually enhances the story. It simply serves to remind the audience that while Snape play little part in the story, he is still a friggin pain to our heroes whenever he can be.

--
H
 

Simon Massey

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I dont remember Dumbledore physically harming a student. The only time I remember Dumbledore "losing his cool" is when comes racing down the stairs to ask if Harry put his name in the goblet. Not sure about the book, but from the movie's standpoint I think it is essential. I never felt like the kids were in any sense of danger in the first 2 films because Dumbledore seemed to know everything and from a viewer's POV that drains any tension from the film about what is to come - everything is fine because Dumbledore has the twinkle in his eye that he knows whats going on. I suppose the first 2 films can get away with it because they serve more as an introduction to the world that the overall story is going to take place over the course of the films. However, if you want to have a sense that "dark and difficult times lie ahead" etc, surely it serves to emphasises that unlike the first 2 films (and to a certain extent the 3rd) Harry is in real danger because Dumbledore may not necessarily have full control over what is happening. And in the context of the films, this is true, as I certainly dont think he would have knowingly let a student die. He should be panicked, frustrated and worried. Regardless of how kind and benevolent he is, we already know this from the other films and I dont think these films are something to be viewed in isolation without previous knowledge of the characters. Things are supposed to be getting serious. Surely we need to see another side to him ?
 

Adam Lenhardt

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Easily the best of the four movies so far. Kloves really knocked it out of the park this time. There was plenty gone from the book, but I didn't miss anything essential this time. I would have liked the subplot with Harry being the only student who can resist the Imperius curse just because it would show a bit of mettle of his own. But it wasn't essential, like knowing the Marauder's Map or what the stag meant.
Not having the infirmary scene where Fudge turns his back on Dumbledore (or the dementor's kiss on Crouch, Jr.) will make it harder for the next film, to be sure, but to be honest that wouldn't be in service of the forth film as a self-contained story.
The biggest revelation with this film was the emphasis on character. Even the big event scenes like the three tasks were played entirely from a character standpoint. I loved the way the world finally hooked together. Cuaro'n started this process in POA, but Newell really nailed it. I love the way the Weasleys interact with each other; with Ron, the twins, and Ginny all getting barbs in at each other.
I also felt like this was the first time Ron wasn't played slowly for laughs. Kloves finally allowed him his rightful share of the exposition, for instance.

I'll agree with the choir that says Richard Harris made a better Dumbledore than Michael Gambon. When I read the books to this day I picture Richard Harris in the role. He, like all of Columbus's choices, was dead on. Gambon is an alternate take, and while I don't think he's the best interpretation of the book, I think it works for the movie. The most important scene was the dormatory scene at the end. In a way, the fact that he doesn't bring that twinkle that Harris had in abundance makes the moments of humanity and compassion from him all the more meaningful.

Bravo job. The first truly four-star Potter for me.

P.S. The film was bright and colorful in my screening. The skies were overcast, just like in POA, but the pallate wasn't dead like in that one. Little details like the tapestries in the World Cup tent, or the blues in the Beuxbaton's uniforms, Fawkes (the same perfect puppet from COS!), or even the bits of color in Ginny's homespun clothes peaking out from under her jumpers all brought flashes of color to light. I thought Pratt did a hell of a job here. Probably my favorite cinematography by him ever.
 

Tim Glover

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Anyone here seen this in IMAX yet? Thoughts? It's playing at one of the local Dallas area IMAX theaters and I'm considering it this weekend.
 

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