Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

The wizard world gets real though losing some of the magic it had before in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, adapted once again (like all the previous movies) by Steven Kloves from the ultra popular J.K. Rowling's book. And this time around Donnie Brasco and Four Weddings and a Funeral director Mike Newell is at the helm (he reportedly turned down an offer to direct the first movie). The entire cast is back and with them the actors growing up, it fitted perfect as our young wizards are also growing up. Now is all about the kids' first dance, boys and girls liking each other for the first time, and really tough competitions that feature real danger, and even death. There's a lot I liked about the movie, and a couple scenes I really loved, but there's also a couple items that needed more work.

But lets start with the beginning of the movie which I love, as Harry, Ron, Hermione and the rest of the Weasleys travel to the I wish it was longer Quidditch World Cup. We only get to see the beginning of the tournament and it's big. It has a great feel of greatness and it makes the world of Harry feel much bigger with the addition of international characters. A comment about the match, it wasn't clear for me if the kids were all just rooting for Ireland or if it was because they were from there. I know Ron and his family are supposed to be Irish just by their looks, and I thought Harry and Hermione were English but there's no mention or explanation about it. We are introduced here to Viktor Krum (Stanislav Ianevski) who is the star of the Bulgarian team.

Then we learn about the Yule Ball and the TriWizard Tournament. I loved everything about the ball and the dance. It was a teen drama and it worked really well. Harry and Ron not getting dates. Harry getting rejected by Cho Chang (played by Katie Leung), whose role is surprisingly small and nothing like I was expecting). The girls giggling for the big boys and then Hermione going to the dance with the jock. Neville going with Ginny. Everything was great. Even the adults like Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane ) getting close to the very tall Madame Maxime (Frances de la Tour) from the French school, and Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) dancing with Minerva McGonagall (Maggie Smith). Excellent.

I mentioned the French school head mistress Madame Maxime and her school, Beauxbaton, is also part of the movie. The Beauxbaton girls and the Durmstrang students are visiting Hogwarts for the TriWizard Tournament in which one participant from each of the three schools must compete. The titular Goblet of Fire selects the contestants after the kids nominate themselves. Good guy Cedric Diggory (Robert Pattinson) is the choice for Hogwarts, Viktor Krum for Durmstrang and the beautiful Fleur Delacour (Clemence Poesy) for Beauxbaton. The Goblet also selects Harry even though he didn't nominate himself and he's not eligible to participate because he is only 14 and the tournament is for kids over 17 only. But since the Goblet allowed him, there's nothing Dumbledore can do about it.
The competitions are amazing. Especially the second one, which is underwater (the French girl is hot!), though what the hell with the kids being tied underwater? I mean, they were in actual danger there as far as we know and I don't think they volunteered for that. The first competition was a fight against a Dragon in which the kids had to take a golden egg from him and that egg would give them clues on the third competition, the very scary and dangerous maze. The entire maze sequence, which ends with Ralph Fiennes as Voldemort, is brilliant. There's great tension, someone dies, and the transformation of Voldemort was an excellent effect. Voldemort looks very different from what they hinted at in the first movies. He's got a kind of blob like skin and his face is like Fiennes' but without a nose, he looks just great.

I loved all that, yes, but there are a few plot holes that I didn't like and I don't know if they were cut because of time for the movie or were not in the books either. But some for characters, especially the evil ones, I need some explanations because it's like they just let them be there in the movie and there's never a confrontation. We learn here that Snape (the brilliant Alan Rickman) was a Death Eater before and then became a spy for Dumbledore. He's always been both good and bad in the previous movies so it makes sense, but then here Harry sees him Igor Karkaroff (played by Pedja Bjelac) who is the head master of Durmstrang, and they are looking at Karkaroff's arm tattoo of the Voldemort symbol (the snake) which is the same one Barty Crouch Jr. (played by David Tennant, who looks a lot like Stuart Townsend) has. Harry had seen the tattoo before in his nightmares, which we see at the beginning of the movie and a couple more times later. In the nightmare Harry sees Voldemort (not visible though, he's sitting on a big chair and he's not transformed yet), Barty Crouch Jr. and Wormtail (Timothy Spall) as they killed an old muggle in an old mansion. The thing is that after Harry sees Snape, Karkaroff and the tattoo together, he doesn't say anything to anybody. And he knew that Barty Crouch Jr. was a bad guy. And then Lucius Malfoy (Jason Isaacs), who at the end is on Voldemort's side but Harry doesn't say anything either about him when he gets out of the maze (apparently something does happen in the book though). That those two characters are still untouched in the story (of the movies at least) is amazing to me.

As for the acting, I thought it was just fine. The Weasley twins (James and Oliver Phelps) are excellent throughout the entire movie and thankfully they get a lot more on screen time than they did in the 3 previous movies combined. The most fun characters of all. Daniel Radclife and Rupert Grint were good too as always and just perfect for their roles. Rupert is getting huge, giant arms. They should change the ages of the kids for the next movies and make it different from the books. There's no way they can make them look 14, as they should be according to the books. And then the only ones that I've never been sure about, Emma Watson as Hermione (sorry, she's cute and will be super hot in the future but her acting is not great) and Tom Felton who plays Drako (the kid can't act). Matthew Lewis who plays Neville was pretty good though.
Then the adults, who were pretty much all great. Glad to see more of Dumbledore who's had almost nothing to do in the first 3 movies. Then a little bit for everybody else though I would've liked to actually see Sirius Black (Gary Oldman). But Brendan Gleeson as Mad Eye Moody, the new professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts, was excellent. I did not like Miranda Richardson's Rita Skeeter though. Robbie Coltrane ruled as in all the previous movies and as mentioned before, Ralph Fiennes was perfect in those 10 or so minutes he was there as Voldemort.

Overall this is a very good movie, great effects and creatures, and a bigger world to work with. In comparison, I think the first two movies were mediocre, and too much for kids. The third one was great. Dark, with a great gothic style and it showed the kids growing up a little bit and it's the best of the series so far. Goblet of Fire is the second best right now. There's a lot to like though there are a few plot holes (lots for those who haven't read the books, like me) that should've not been left unanswered, though for that it would've taken a lot of extra time so I guess I have to let it pass. Add to that an almost non existent score from John Williams (who was nominated for an Oscar for Azkaban) which was weird, and the loss of the great cinematography seen before also in the third movie, and should be more unhappy but despite all that, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is a great movie, because the kids are growing, and we get to see that part of them that we've never seen before, and Mike Newell translated it perfect into the movie. As Hermione says, "Everything is going to change now, isn't it?", and the answer is yes, but with these great team of people making the next movies too, there's nothing to fear because the changes will be for better.