Goblet of Fire: Movie Review
I can see I'm going to end up coughing up more money for LJ pretty soon. I was just bored enough with all my old icons, even though I had some good ones, to delete almost everything just so I could upload a new one.
Which I wanted specifically for this post, because it is GOF review time. :)
We'll start with the gripes. Some minor, some not so minor.
The Death Eaters, particularly at the Quidditch cup. Uh, guys? The KKK called, they want their robes and their hats back. Seriously, I know a lot of people debate whether there are intentional parallels there in the books, but I think they could've been done differently in the movie. Aren't they supposed to have cloaks and blank white masks? I need to re-read the book again, but...
I missed the bit where the kids run into Draco in the woods, too.
I didn't mind some of the stuff they changed, like having Harry and Hermione already at the Weasleys'. I kept waiting for Mr. Diggory to start gloating about Cedric beating Harry at Quidditch.
My next gripe is Durmstrang and Beauxbatons. When did they become single-sex schools? Also, Dumbledore's French sucks worse than mine, 'cause I don't think he pronounced Beauxbatons right.
Speaking of Beauxbatons, why is Madame Maxime just... tall?
Also, on the subject of pronunciation? I've got to check, but I think the spell to cast the Dark Mark is Morsmordre- Uh, Barty Jr? Where did that first 'r' go, dude? "Mormordere?" Eh?
Karkaroff needed more speaking lines. I'm pretty sure I remember him from The Hunt For Red October, which I've seen a couple hundred times. He's really good at playing the scheming bastard type, and a few more lines might have showed that better.
Next gripe is not so minor. Constant vigilance, guys? Two little words, and I so, SO wanted to hear them shouted at the DADA class.
Padma Patil is in Ravenclaw. Hello...
And apparently this is a thing of major wanking on LJ (who knew? I found out from an icon comm...) but Hermione's dress is supposed to be blue.
I miss Richard Harris. He was such a cool guy, too! I'm really not feeling the love for the new Dumbledore. He's alright, I guess, and I'm not a huge Dumbledore fan anyway, but something about the new actor doesn't ring true for me. (Didn't in PoA either, but that was hardly PoA's only problem.)
The First Task went on way, way too long. Since when does the dragon spend fifteen minutes beating the crap out of Hogwarts?
Rita Skeeter. For a while it looked like they were going to put in the whole Rita subplot, only... they didn't. It looks oddly unfinished for those of us who've read the book.
I hope they remember to mention in the next movie that Harry won a ton of gold in the tournament, and that he gives it to Fred and George for their joke shop,' cause it sure as hell wasn't in here.
WTF was Barty Jr. doing in Little Hangleton at the Riddle House?
There were no veela at the QWC. There was no mention that Fleur was part-veela, and that made Ron's randomly asking her to the dance really, really strange.
Ah, the dance. Hormone city. I missed Snape zapping apart those rosebushes and giving everybody detention.
I did like the dance lesson they added, but some of Minerva's lines were a bit... Babbling band of brainless baboons, or however that went?
Combining the two Pensieve scenes into one was a good way to condense things a bit, but it did leave out some stuff I thought was important. Like Bellatrix and her friends. Like the fact that those Longbottoms were Neville's parents (which relates, of course, to why the Crucio freaked him out so bad in DADA). Like Moody looking like he thought D'dore was on crack when he said that stuff about Snape not having gone to the dark side for real. ;)
Speaking of Moody and Snape, I really really missed their little chat when Harry goes to take his egg for a bath. They could've had such fun with the snark there, AND added in a bit of the Crouch oddness when Harry sees his name on the map. (Not that we saw the map in this movie, of course.)
Why, why, WHY did we not get to see Snape's Dark Mark at the end? It's in the book, it's bloody important, and now if I want an icon of a Dark Mark on somebody's arm, I've gotta use Karkaroff's. Bleh...
Also, I know that was Veritaserum he fed to fake!Moody, but a throwaway line would've been helpful. ("Ah, Severus, you have the Veritaserum? Good..." or something.)
To my surprise, I kinda missed Percy and all that stuff about his report on cauldrons.
A line or two explaining how Barty Jr. got out of Azkaban- or, you know, what happened to him when they caught him- wouldn't have hurt, either. They could have easily put Crouch Sr's ramblings in, while he's in the woods- uh, before he got deaded...
Okay, I think that's about everything that bugged me, so on to the good stuff.
I'm still not totally keen on the way they did Moody's eye, but after a while I sort of forgot about that, because damn, that guy is good! He's crazy, and paranoid, and he hexed the ceiling in the Great Hall! Okay, so that was a silly little addition, but it amused me. I loved the ferret scene; the additions there were hilarious.
"Is that a student?!"
"Technically, it's a ferret."
Filch running was pretty amusing, though I don't think he's supposed to have a limp... Filch, dancing with his cat at the Yule Ball? Funniest. Thing. Ever.
I really didn't expect this movie to be so funny. I spent half of it in stitches, and a couple times I think I might've been in danger of falling out of my chair. (Which, you know, one doesn't really want to do at a theater, because ew...)
Snape smacking Ron and Harry in the head in that study hall type scene was funny as hell. Loved the way he pulled his sleeves up before he went to smack them again.
The little mini-Order of the Phoenix meeting at Dumbledore's office with Moody, Snape, and Minerva was cool. Need to find some screencaps of that.
I loved the way Snape assumed Harry and his "little friends" were making Polyjuice. Makes you wonder why he never noticed the same ingredients got stolen in CoS...
Also, yay for the Pensieve flashback! Always liked that one, though I was sad there was no Bella in it.
I'm glad there were no House-Elves or SPEW in the movie. At least they cut something I don't think had much bearing on the plot (for a change...)
And the final scenes- the graveyard was excellently creepy. I could hear the Fiennes fangirls screaming in protest worldwide, and it was good. Voldie was scary and creepy and I think he was checking out dead!Cedric, I really do... The Voldie/Harry duel came off as bizarre as it was in the book, so yay for that, I say.
The last scene with fake!Moody and Harry was brilliant. That is Crouch Jr, and I could almost hear Harry's thoughts from the book going through his head while Crouch rants on about the Dark Lord and his merry band. Good times! ;)
And last but not least, poor real!Moody in his trunk. Awwwww! He looked like he needed a hug- and hello, it did look cold down there, somebody could have tossed the poor man a cloak- maybe his own, that Crouch Jr wasn't gonna need anymore... And some mention of "Don't worry, Harry, he'll be okay, he's only been down there nine months with only that psycho over there visiting him now and again..." couldn't have hurt, either.
Overall, I liked the movie a lot, and I liked it tons better than PoA, where they cut too much essential stuff and added way too much weird shit. It was pretty true to the book in most ways; most of my gripes are minor details I only obsess over because I have a certain focus to my fannishness- well, okay, certain foci, let's be honest here, Chris. Anyway.
Good movie. I want to see it again. Is the DVD out yet?
And now to the non-spoilery part of the review, aka the Theater Rant.
People, this movie is PG-13. It is PG-13 for a reason, and trust me, it's not the bloody dragons. Shut up about the dragons, because while yeah, they might be scary, they are small potatoes. The PG-13 is all about the darkness, the last couple scenes, parts of which creeped me out, and the fact that this nice boy everyone thinks is so pretty gets murdered by the bad guy. Duh... So, with that understood, why in the HELL were there so many little children there? Little children who needed booster seats, and couldn't keep track of their own sodas, and who were, not surprisingly, crying by the end of the movie?
I hope their parents had Voldie-and-the-Death-Eaters-nightmares to deal with that night.
Also, a special "no love" shout-out to the people standing in line behind us to get into the theater. Talking as loudly as possible, thus shouting directly into my mother's ear? Not a really good idea. She totally almost killed you. I almost helped. It was not that loud in there. Shut UP.
Next bit of rantyness. Danial Radcliff fangirls. Shut up, shut up, and shut up. You're getting worse than the Orlando Bloom fans at Pirates of the Caribbean, and I didn't think that was possible. They sighed and whistled during the bathtub scene, and again when his name came onscreen for the credits. I cheered for Alan Rickman and Maggie Smith, just to freak them out. Also because those two rock. Someone stood up to leave and I barely saw Brenden Gleeson's name, or he would've gotten a cheer, too.
I fear no teenybopper fangirl that lives in this town. :)
And a final Theater Rant- No love to the people who built the place, even though it's the best theater in town, and we drove all the way over from our new place, even though others are closer, because it's such a good one. Because they built their stairs all funky, so that when I looked up to see how bad the crowd was outside in the hall, and went to keep walking down the steps, I put my foot where there was no step, and fell, and smacked my knee and both ankles. The knee and one ankle are alright. The other ankle is killing me.
It was still almost worth it. Damn good movie. :)
Which I wanted specifically for this post, because it is GOF review time. :)
We'll start with the gripes. Some minor, some not so minor.
The Death Eaters, particularly at the Quidditch cup. Uh, guys? The KKK called, they want their robes and their hats back. Seriously, I know a lot of people debate whether there are intentional parallels there in the books, but I think they could've been done differently in the movie. Aren't they supposed to have cloaks and blank white masks? I need to re-read the book again, but...
I missed the bit where the kids run into Draco in the woods, too.
I didn't mind some of the stuff they changed, like having Harry and Hermione already at the Weasleys'. I kept waiting for Mr. Diggory to start gloating about Cedric beating Harry at Quidditch.
My next gripe is Durmstrang and Beauxbatons. When did they become single-sex schools? Also, Dumbledore's French sucks worse than mine, 'cause I don't think he pronounced Beauxbatons right.
Speaking of Beauxbatons, why is Madame Maxime just... tall?
Also, on the subject of pronunciation? I've got to check, but I think the spell to cast the Dark Mark is Morsmordre- Uh, Barty Jr? Where did that first 'r' go, dude? "Mormordere?" Eh?
Karkaroff needed more speaking lines. I'm pretty sure I remember him from The Hunt For Red October, which I've seen a couple hundred times. He's really good at playing the scheming bastard type, and a few more lines might have showed that better.
Next gripe is not so minor. Constant vigilance, guys? Two little words, and I so, SO wanted to hear them shouted at the DADA class.
Padma Patil is in Ravenclaw. Hello...
And apparently this is a thing of major wanking on LJ (who knew? I found out from an icon comm...) but Hermione's dress is supposed to be blue.
I miss Richard Harris. He was such a cool guy, too! I'm really not feeling the love for the new Dumbledore. He's alright, I guess, and I'm not a huge Dumbledore fan anyway, but something about the new actor doesn't ring true for me. (Didn't in PoA either, but that was hardly PoA's only problem.)
The First Task went on way, way too long. Since when does the dragon spend fifteen minutes beating the crap out of Hogwarts?
Rita Skeeter. For a while it looked like they were going to put in the whole Rita subplot, only... they didn't. It looks oddly unfinished for those of us who've read the book.
I hope they remember to mention in the next movie that Harry won a ton of gold in the tournament, and that he gives it to Fred and George for their joke shop,' cause it sure as hell wasn't in here.
WTF was Barty Jr. doing in Little Hangleton at the Riddle House?
There were no veela at the QWC. There was no mention that Fleur was part-veela, and that made Ron's randomly asking her to the dance really, really strange.
Ah, the dance. Hormone city. I missed Snape zapping apart those rosebushes and giving everybody detention.
I did like the dance lesson they added, but some of Minerva's lines were a bit... Babbling band of brainless baboons, or however that went?
Combining the two Pensieve scenes into one was a good way to condense things a bit, but it did leave out some stuff I thought was important. Like Bellatrix and her friends. Like the fact that those Longbottoms were Neville's parents (which relates, of course, to why the Crucio freaked him out so bad in DADA). Like Moody looking like he thought D'dore was on crack when he said that stuff about Snape not having gone to the dark side for real. ;)
Speaking of Moody and Snape, I really really missed their little chat when Harry goes to take his egg for a bath. They could've had such fun with the snark there, AND added in a bit of the Crouch oddness when Harry sees his name on the map. (Not that we saw the map in this movie, of course.)
Why, why, WHY did we not get to see Snape's Dark Mark at the end? It's in the book, it's bloody important, and now if I want an icon of a Dark Mark on somebody's arm, I've gotta use Karkaroff's. Bleh...
Also, I know that was Veritaserum he fed to fake!Moody, but a throwaway line would've been helpful. ("Ah, Severus, you have the Veritaserum? Good..." or something.)
To my surprise, I kinda missed Percy and all that stuff about his report on cauldrons.
A line or two explaining how Barty Jr. got out of Azkaban- or, you know, what happened to him when they caught him- wouldn't have hurt, either. They could have easily put Crouch Sr's ramblings in, while he's in the woods- uh, before he got deaded...
Okay, I think that's about everything that bugged me, so on to the good stuff.
I'm still not totally keen on the way they did Moody's eye, but after a while I sort of forgot about that, because damn, that guy is good! He's crazy, and paranoid, and he hexed the ceiling in the Great Hall! Okay, so that was a silly little addition, but it amused me. I loved the ferret scene; the additions there were hilarious.
"Is that a student?!"
"Technically, it's a ferret."
Filch running was pretty amusing, though I don't think he's supposed to have a limp... Filch, dancing with his cat at the Yule Ball? Funniest. Thing. Ever.
I really didn't expect this movie to be so funny. I spent half of it in stitches, and a couple times I think I might've been in danger of falling out of my chair. (Which, you know, one doesn't really want to do at a theater, because ew...)
Snape smacking Ron and Harry in the head in that study hall type scene was funny as hell. Loved the way he pulled his sleeves up before he went to smack them again.
The little mini-Order of the Phoenix meeting at Dumbledore's office with Moody, Snape, and Minerva was cool. Need to find some screencaps of that.
I loved the way Snape assumed Harry and his "little friends" were making Polyjuice. Makes you wonder why he never noticed the same ingredients got stolen in CoS...
Also, yay for the Pensieve flashback! Always liked that one, though I was sad there was no Bella in it.
I'm glad there were no House-Elves or SPEW in the movie. At least they cut something I don't think had much bearing on the plot (for a change...)
And the final scenes- the graveyard was excellently creepy. I could hear the Fiennes fangirls screaming in protest worldwide, and it was good. Voldie was scary and creepy and I think he was checking out dead!Cedric, I really do... The Voldie/Harry duel came off as bizarre as it was in the book, so yay for that, I say.
The last scene with fake!Moody and Harry was brilliant. That is Crouch Jr, and I could almost hear Harry's thoughts from the book going through his head while Crouch rants on about the Dark Lord and his merry band. Good times! ;)
And last but not least, poor real!Moody in his trunk. Awwwww! He looked like he needed a hug- and hello, it did look cold down there, somebody could have tossed the poor man a cloak- maybe his own, that Crouch Jr wasn't gonna need anymore... And some mention of "Don't worry, Harry, he'll be okay, he's only been down there nine months with only that psycho over there visiting him now and again..." couldn't have hurt, either.
Overall, I liked the movie a lot, and I liked it tons better than PoA, where they cut too much essential stuff and added way too much weird shit. It was pretty true to the book in most ways; most of my gripes are minor details I only obsess over because I have a certain focus to my fannishness- well, okay, certain foci, let's be honest here, Chris. Anyway.
Good movie. I want to see it again. Is the DVD out yet?
And now to the non-spoilery part of the review, aka the Theater Rant.
People, this movie is PG-13. It is PG-13 for a reason, and trust me, it's not the bloody dragons. Shut up about the dragons, because while yeah, they might be scary, they are small potatoes. The PG-13 is all about the darkness, the last couple scenes, parts of which creeped me out, and the fact that this nice boy everyone thinks is so pretty gets murdered by the bad guy. Duh... So, with that understood, why in the HELL were there so many little children there? Little children who needed booster seats, and couldn't keep track of their own sodas, and who were, not surprisingly, crying by the end of the movie?
I hope their parents had Voldie-and-the-Death-Eaters-nightmares to deal with that night.
Also, a special "no love" shout-out to the people standing in line behind us to get into the theater. Talking as loudly as possible, thus shouting directly into my mother's ear? Not a really good idea. She totally almost killed you. I almost helped. It was not that loud in there. Shut UP.
Next bit of rantyness. Danial Radcliff fangirls. Shut up, shut up, and shut up. You're getting worse than the Orlando Bloom fans at Pirates of the Caribbean, and I didn't think that was possible. They sighed and whistled during the bathtub scene, and again when his name came onscreen for the credits. I cheered for Alan Rickman and Maggie Smith, just to freak them out. Also because those two rock. Someone stood up to leave and I barely saw Brenden Gleeson's name, or he would've gotten a cheer, too.
I fear no teenybopper fangirl that lives in this town. :)
And a final Theater Rant- No love to the people who built the place, even though it's the best theater in town, and we drove all the way over from our new place, even though others are closer, because it's such a good one. Because they built their stairs all funky, so that when I looked up to see how bad the crowd was outside in the hall, and went to keep walking down the steps, I put my foot where there was no step, and fell, and smacked my knee and both ankles. The knee and one ankle are alright. The other ankle is killing me.
It was still almost worth it. Damn good movie. :)