Goblet of Fire, movie in review

[mijan]

Hello loves!  Yes, I went to the movie last night, and generally, we had a pretty spiffy time.  Oh, except for the fact that the video and sound screwed up right at the scene when the names come out of the Goblet, and it was fucked up for several agonizing minutes and they wouldn't/couldn't rewind.  The line party itself was awesome.  I have a new broom and wand (and an awesome new scarf... YAY!), and I'll take pictures of all that stuff soon and post it.  We had a fun time hanging out.  As usual, I was with my Boston area line party group.  Met some new fandom people, and got to hang out with gatewaygirl again and a bunch of people whose LJ names I can't remember right now, and had an awesome time.  At 4:00, we started gathering at a nearby restaurant.  At 5:30 or so, we all lined up in the theatre.  We acted silly.  T'was good.  At 8:30, we all watched a showing of Prizoner of Azkaban.  At midnight, Goblet of Fire started.  We laughed, we cried, we acted like crazy fandom people, and it was great.

Anyhow, the movie itself... some of it was awesome, but some of it pissed me off.  I knew it was gonna happen.  If you haven't seen it, you might want to avoid the LJ cut.

There were some things that were awesome about the movie.  A few of those things:
~ Barty Crouch, Barty Jr., Rita Skeeter, Karakoff, and  LOOKED like the characters I imagined, and most of the acting was dead-on.
~ Snape, although not always strictly canonical (the batting of Harry's and Ron's heads in the Great Hall during "study time"), was awesome.  And I liked the part where he whapped them on the heads anyway, so it's all good anyway!
~ Moaning Myrtle in the bathroom.  That was brilliant.  'Nuff said.
~ Cedric... "The Prefect's Bathroom is a GREAT place to take a bath..."  Oh so suggestive!  I loved it!  *bounces*
~ THE FERRET SCENE!  BOUNCE BOUNCE BOUNCE!!!
~ Fred and George.  They were awesome.
~ Neville.  I loff Neville.  Muchly.
~ The scene IN the pensieve itself was well-done, but we never saw *why* Harry was going to Dumbledore's office, and why would it have been so hard for him to have discovered the pensieve the way he did in the book (by just seeing a glow through the slightly-open cabinet door?
~ The graveyard scene.  Yes, some things were off, but overall, I think it was a damned good job.  I'll give my little critiques later.
~ Harry's Dan's acting after the Portkey returned him from the graveyard.  I BELIEVED it.  I cried.  I really did.  I'm getting teary-eyed and tight-chested thinking about the scene... Harry clinging to Cedric's body.  Damn, they actually followed canon for that.  And Harry Dan LOOKED like he was distraught and in a state of emotional and physical shock.  That saved the movie.

Little critiques, but not things that were so bad:
~ I thought Dan looked a little stiff while his wand was locked with "Voldemort's".  He was standing upright, as if he wasn't struggling to hold steady.  He might have had the facial expressions pretty well, but he needed to struggle with the wand a bit, bend his knees, almost like he's playing a warped game of tug-of-war, only not quite pushing OR pulling.  Does that make sense?  That's something the director should have caught, especially for such a vital scene.
~ The Yule Ball:  Having *everyone* dancing except Ron, Harry, and the Patil twins looked wrong somehow.  There should have been other people walking to and from the dance floor.  The balance was wrong somehow.  Again, a director's decision.
~ The dragon scene was exciting, but it went a bit beyond.
~ Where was Dobby with the Gillyweed?  Sure Dobby can be annoying, but I wanted to see him.
~ The bit with the Polyjuice being repeatedly mentioned, and seeing Mad-Eye Moody repeatedly drinking from his flask... it made it TOO obvious.  Hideously obvious.  But we knew already, so it didn't bother me *too* much.
~ The dance lesson scene.  Was that *really* necessary?
~ I thought Voldemort's face should be a little more white. It looked too much like a normal fleshtone. The shape was awesome, but it needed to be whiter. And RED EYES! COME ON! What was up with the baby blues?!?

However, here are the little things about the movie that made me angry. Stupid oversights, or things they changed but didn't need to:
~ Why did they have to knock Harry out in the burning-down-the-camp scene? He didn't get knocked out in the book! Not even close!  Ron tripped, but that was it.  And they all stayed together!  Why did they need it to be "just Harry"?  Come on!  Just have the kids run into the woods, they see Draco being smug and telling them to "watch out" or something to that effect, Harry sees a house elf and Barty Crouch Jr., and then the Ministry people arrive. End of story. There was no need to change it!
~ Madam Pomfrey can "heal bones in heartbeat", but Harry had cuts on his face for the entire movie, and his arm in a sling, and that funny tentacle bruise for days? The only time an "injury" in the books was supposed to take more than a day to heal was when Draco was exagerating the Hippogriff injury.
~ Death Eaters = Ku Klux Klan?  What's with the dunce caps?
~ Mad-Eye Moody neither looked nor behaved the way I pictured him.
~ What happened to the Veela storyline?  WAH!
~ Why were the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students doing gymnastics and acrobatics in the Great Hall? They attend schools of magic, not gymnastics academies, right?
~ Barty Crouch at Tom Riddle's mansion?
~ Harry was supposed to be TIED to the gravestone, not put into a choke-hold by a scythe. How hard would it be to conjure some ropes?
~ The maze... where were the obstacles? The sphinx? The "upside down" spot? Oh, and Harry DID say that Krum was "bewitched" when he attacked, but how hard would it have been to have Harry say "He's under the Imperius Curse!" instead? GRRRR!!! It almost totally negates the point of showing the Unforgivable Curses earlier in the movie.
~ No mention of the 1000 Galleon prize, or the joke shop, or any of those things.
~ Rita Skeeter almost disappeared off the map after those two scenes.
~ The dragon was supposed to be bent on protecting its nest, so why did it chase Harry around? He was supposed to be flying to lure it away.
~Flitwick body-surfing at the Yule Ball.
~ Harry's little back-flip out of the water when he discovered the Gillyweed gave him fins. That's just not Harry. And what was that charm that was he used to propel himself from the water at the end? GAH! NO!
~ Harry with the egg in the common room... It's not in Harry's personality to say "Who wants me to open it? Who wants me to open it?" *shakes head*  They totally messed up that boy's characterization in some scenes.
~ Finally, while Dan's performance immediately after the Portkey returned him from the graveyard was his best acting yet (I really *believed* him as Harry), what about the Hospital wing scene? The boy was bleeding and in shock, for Merlin's sake!  They were supposed to bring him to the hospital wing, Mrs. Weasley was supposed to hug him... WTF? And Dumbledore... this was by far the worst Dumbledore performance yet.  Why?  When they finally got something so right, why did they get it wrong?
~ And finally, why did people look HAPPY at the end?!? Cedric had just died, and Dumbledore just told them all that Voldemort was back! And Hermione is smiling and talking like change is a good thing! GRRRRR!!!

So, overall, thumbs up.  Good movie, but I get the feeling that if you hadn't read the book, it would be pretty difficult to follow.  But then, if you *have* read the book, like most of us, you're going to notice all those niggling little things that make you want to strangle someone.

~P

Comments

[mijan.livejournal.com]

Aww, not fair to the Australians! Why do that do that to you guys? *pouts on your behalf*

And Dan has a house in your city? As in, Dan Radcliffe?

[imperial-dragon.livejournal.com]

yeah rent's coming out late as well. they do it so the primary kids can watch it (i really don't understand this logic but...). thanks for the pout *grins* they've started showing the trailers on tv!!! and there was a dan radcliffe interview on rove (one of the better, but still not that good, variety shows) and he was adorable and gorgeous and every other positive word (except, there were some bits where he was slightly tooly).

lol, yeah, dan radcliffe's house is in Toorak (melbourne, Victoria), which is a tramride away from my school, although he's currently filming december boys in South Australia.