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Harry Potter
I want to like the Harry Potter movies; I really do. I thought the first one was very well-done (good story and visually stunning), and the third recovered from the damage done in the second. And I don't dislike the current movie; I just had trouble seeing a lot of good in it. (Hmm. Is it possible that the Harry Potter movies suffer from Star-Trek-movie syndrome?)
I haven't read the book. I know it was something over 600 pages, so I assume they had to do a lot of cutting. Given that, I was surprised to find myself thinking, in a couple places, "they could have trimmed this scene to make room for something else". Harry's fight with his dragon was the most prominent of these; it was a fine scene, and it would have been an equally-fine scene shortened by two minutes.
I found the storytelling in this one somewhat lacking. Ok, am I to understand that Voldemort's followers needed some of Harry's blood to reconstitute the big V, so they planted an agent whose job was to rig things in this big international tourney that everyone would be paying attention to, so that Harry would touch the cup and be transported to the graveyard? You'd think there'd be easier ways to get a blood sample. So I assume that Harry's actual presence was required, but that didn't come through.
We saw that in rounds two and three people could withdraw from the tourney. Could they in the first round? Since Harry wasn't hot on this in the first place and never consented to compete, why didn't he just withdraw from each round at the first opportunity? I understand that the story needed him not to do so, but the question should have been addressed on-screen. Only in the second trial did we see that there are real, unfortunate consequences to withdrawing.
Is there no consideration at all for a contestant who didn't enter and doesn't satisfy the rules? They said this is a magical contract, but contracts are generally agreed upon, not imposed. This sounds more like a curse.
Speaking of curses, what did the second one in the class do? It was obviously unpleasant for the victim, but so would being shot with fireballs, and that spell isn't on the forbidden list.
I would like to thank the producers for not showing the Quiddich match. I understand that this was a big part of the book, but I've found the past Quiddich scenes to be mostly boring with brief moments of excitement.
I thought the dream sequences and Harry's look into Dumbledore's pool were well-done -- creepy and other-worldly but not egregiously so.
The previews were disappointing. Here's what I remember:
- Ice Age 2: seems to be mostly sight gags. (I didn't see the first one.)
- Monster House: the look was similar to The Incredibles; I didn't notice if it was the same people. I was kind of surprised to see Spielburg's name on this one.
- Happy Feet: Huh? Is this really two hours of animated penguins dancing?
- a Superman movie (I don't remember an actual title): I would be favorably inclined to a Superman movie, but the preview for this particular one kind of creeped me out. The Superman I remember was hastily put into a spaceship and shot off a dying planet in the hopes he would survive somewhere; that is not at all in keeping with a deep, booming voice that said, essentially, "I sent my only son to redeem this world".
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I mean, getting Barty Jr into Hogwarts as Moody, that was good. But the appropriate thing to do at that point would be to give Harry detention one afternoon, bash him over the head, stick him in a sack, and teleport to Voldy -- not come up with some fuckin' crazy-ass plan about making the main prize in a whole year-long tournament actually be a Portkey, and rig things so that he wins. . . .
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As for the Coke commercial, I loved it. And I know my mother will if she sees it.
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That would be crucio or the Cruciatus curse, which causes excruciating pain and is used for torture. An important blink-and-you'll-miss-it point in the movie (mentioned in passing during the pensieve flashback to the trial) was that the Longbottoms - Neville's parents - were tortured with Cruciatus by the Death Eaters, which is why he knew of the curse and why he was freaking out even more than the others when watching it demonstrated. In the book, Dumbledore explains to Harry (as part of the debrief for the pensieve scene, when Harry puts two and two together) that they lived, but were driven insane and institutionalized. Neville and his grandmother (who now raises him) visit them on holidays, and they don't recognize him.
Two hours of animated penguins with Robin Williams' voice dancing, which I'm sure you'll agree makes it all better. IMDB has the tag line "Into the world of the Emperor Penguins, who find their soul mates through song, a penguin is born who cannot sing. But he can tap dance something fierce!" and also cites Elijah Wood, Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman, and a number of other presumably expensive voices.
Between the penguins from Madagascar and March of the Penguins, they're very hot for as cool as they are - and the song and dance sequences with the lemurs were some of the best parts of the former - so this would have almost pitched itself to the studios. I have hopes, but, you know, penguins and me go back a ways...
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The Imperius Curse, it lets the caster control another wizard. In the book, Barty Crouch Sr. is under the control of his Barty Jr./Moody that is who killed Barty Sr. in the forest when Harry found him. Also cut from the movie is the fact that Moody tests the Imperius Curse on Harry, and Harry learns he can resist it.
Like you, I considered it not as good as Prizoner of Azkaban but better than the first two movies.
Merry Christmas!
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Oh, ok. I didn't perceive "excrutiating pain" in the movie. Thanks for explaining.
An important blink-and-you'll-miss-it point in the movie
I guess I blinked; this adds a lot of important information.
Two hours of animated penguins with Robin Williams' voice
Oh! How did I miss that Robin Williams is involved?
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Have a good holiday!
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Definitely would have edited slightly differently, although I can't fault them too much given how much they're squeezing into a two hour feature.
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1. Imperius - forces you to do the will of another person. Think "imperative".
2. Crucio - torture. Think "excruciating".
3. Avara Kedavara - instant death. Think "cadaver".
I thought the movie was utterly gorgeous, and at least Harry's dragon fight wasn't as long as the pod race in Star Wars Episode I. :-)
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BTW, no one dropped out of the tournament, they just didn't complete specific tasks. You'll note all four contestants were in the final task.
My friend went with her husband who hasn't read the books and she spent most of the movie answering his whispered, confused questions and the rest of the evening post-movie explaining everything in more detail.
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"Hey, Harry, I need you to check on something for me: put down your wand, empty your mind, and read this book. It'll be a life-altering experience!"
Or course, if he had been half-way competent, then the book would've ended then, and the rest of the volumes would've been a lot shorter.
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Yes. Sorry I was unclear. What I meant was that if it's possible to withdraw from individual rounds, and Harry didn't want to do this anyway, what stopped him from withdrawing at the beginning of each round? Embarrassment? He's already, irrevocably near as I can tell, scorned by some classmates; how much worse could that get?
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Interesting -- whereas for me, I thought this was the weakest of the books and the strongest of the movies. I usually describe Goblet of Fire as a fine 500 page book that is, unfortunately, about 800 pages long.
While I keep expecting the house-elf plot to pay off sooner or later, I found it utterly interminable in the book, and was glad to see the SPEW plot cut. And in general, I thought the editing was reasonably good, turning a slow book into a reasonably taut movie.
Although, all that said, I'm not surprised that
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I agree with you about the dragon scene. It was really short in the book. I couldn't understand why they made it so long in the movie and then shortened the maze segment. There should have been monsters to fight in the maze. Eldred and I both felt that several times the movie built the tension to a point where something intense should have happened, but nothing did. The scene simply switched. I was also disappointed by the ending. The tribute to Cedric should have been more moving. Ah, well. It still beats most movies out there!