HPGOF: A Review
I went to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire last night and was disappointed on a couple of levels. I should mention that I know the books well, and that to me the movie suffers badly by the comparison, so I'm probably a poor reviewer for those who only see the movies. I should also mention that I seem to wind up opposite to most of the professional reviewers, who liked Prisoner of Azkaban but not Sorcerer's Stone and Chanber of Secrets.
In GOF, Mike Newell confronts a more severe version of the problem Alfonso Cuaron faced in POA: how to fit a long and eventfull tale into movie format. Cuaron did pretty well by picking a few plot elements and concentrating on atmospherics - at considerable cost in logical coherence. This technique works less well for the much longer and more complicated GOF. Plot has become a few schematic posters and I found much of the atmospherics tedious - also Newell seems to lack Cuaron's artistic sensibility.
There were some bright spots: the scene with Moaning Myrtle in the prefect's bathroom was a bit heavy-handed but still very funny. The graveyard scene was pretty well done.
The first and third challenges became rather lame cartoons, with the first reduced to a tedious chase and the many interesting challenges of the maze reduced to portentious wandering in a dark and gloomy place.
Finally, I was surprized by the audience. There were few little kids, but lots of college age types. The movie started at 7:30, late for little ones on a school night, but the hour didn't keep them away from the midnight sale of the Half Blood Prince at my local bookstore.
YMMV of course, but for me, the books are so vastly superior a product that I almost wonder why I will bother buying the DVD when it comes out. Of course I will.
In GOF, Mike Newell confronts a more severe version of the problem Alfonso Cuaron faced in POA: how to fit a long and eventfull tale into movie format. Cuaron did pretty well by picking a few plot elements and concentrating on atmospherics - at considerable cost in logical coherence. This technique works less well for the much longer and more complicated GOF. Plot has become a few schematic posters and I found much of the atmospherics tedious - also Newell seems to lack Cuaron's artistic sensibility.
There were some bright spots: the scene with Moaning Myrtle in the prefect's bathroom was a bit heavy-handed but still very funny. The graveyard scene was pretty well done.
The first and third challenges became rather lame cartoons, with the first reduced to a tedious chase and the many interesting challenges of the maze reduced to portentious wandering in a dark and gloomy place.
Finally, I was surprized by the audience. There were few little kids, but lots of college age types. The movie started at 7:30, late for little ones on a school night, but the hour didn't keep them away from the midnight sale of the Half Blood Prince at my local bookstore.
YMMV of course, but for me, the books are so vastly superior a product that I almost wonder why I will bother buying the DVD when it comes out. Of course I will.
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