Lindsay's thoughts on the Goblet of Fire movie.

[ves_heill]

There be spoilers ahead. Ye be warned.

The Very, Very Good:

• Easily the best of the four HP films so far. By a loooooong shot. This is one that I'll be happy to watch again and again.
• The acting of the trio was much more nuanced - witness, for example the scene where Hermione is delivering Ron's message to Harry about Hagrid's meeting request. Hermione was properly annoyed and frustrated without being too overbearing, Ron was obviously peeved at Harry though still nicely standoff-ish, and Harry was a lovely combination of annoyed and confused and nonplussed. Very nice. And Harry's tears at the end? Actually believable this time (as opposed to that farce of being upset upon learning Sirius Black was his godfather in PoA). It's great fun to consider how much they have progressed over these last four films. I can't wait to see where they go from here, and in whatever other roles they take on the side and/or after.
• Mike Newell's directing was (mostly) a joy to behold. Cuaron's artistic efforts remain in terms of lighting and scenery, but it's all a bit tempered, which I was happy to see. However much I liked the bird being wholloped by the whomping willow in PoA, it's still incredibly unnerving to see that scene and realize that to include that little interlude cost a fair penny, resulting in cutbacks elsewhere. Less bird whomping and more storyline! But Newell trod a very fine line between artistic and realistic. Though I read critisism of this elsewhere, he used lighting that was somewhat reminiscent of the Lord of the Rings trilogy - I personally liked it as it immediately conveys a sense of otherworldliness.
• Ralph Fiennes was fab-u-lous, with a capital FAB. Having seen him play Voldemort I don't know that I could ever accept anyone different at this point. Hopefully he's willing to be in the movies for the long haul.
• Alan Rickman as Snape. Oh, dear god. I love that man, in all of his greasy git-ness. The scene in study hall (since when do they have study hall?) was possibly my favorite in the whole movie.
• Excellent effects with the Hungarian Horntail. I can't tell you how much I loved the detail of the tiles sliding off the eaves when the dragon's claws were clutching at the roof.
• Ginny's coming into her own as a character in the films (finally), and it seems as though Bonnie Wright's got her attitude down pat: Ron: "Ginny, mum sent these for you." Ginny: "I'm not wearing those. They're ghastly!" Aw. I love her.

The Mostly Good

• Brendan Gleeson was good, as good as can be expected with the lines he had to work with. Meaning his acting was superb but I was less than thrilled with a) his introduction (what, Dumbledore couldn't save the ceiling in the great hall but Moody could? Puh-leeze.), b) the tongue flick (more on that later), and c) the fact that he had a false leg rather than a stump. The echoing sound of a stump striking cold floor is much scarier than a prosthetic metal limb that makes no sound.
• The actors they selected for Krum and Fleur (Stanoslav Ivanevski and Clemence Poesy, I think - I'm not bothering to go back and make sure I've got the right spellings), as well as their introductions. Krum's got the brooding thing going on and Fleur's pretty (in an utterly girl-next door sort of way, rather than ethereally beautiful as I was hoping for), but their characters weren't developed AT ALL - all you ever learn is that he's a world-famous quiddich star who likes Hermione and that she's French with a little sister... which is true and correct, but why would that make us care one iota if they win the Triwizard Cup? I didn't feel like their screen time was appropriate to the importance of their respective characters. The introduction of the two schools in the great hall was nothing short of lame and useless. They should have spent less time on that and more time on the characters themselves.
• Miranda Richardson playing Rita Skeeter. She was good, and funny, but if it were me I would have gone even more over the top with her character. Even so, she managed to steal the scene whenever she was in the room. 12, bwahaha!
• They physical bodies of Rupert as Ron and Dan as Harry. When clothed you can forget that they're aging faster than the characters they play. But when practically the first introduction you get to Ron is a close-up of some fairly muscular arms and Harry's got a back so ripped that even grown women in the audience suck in their breaths in collective appreciation... well, that's taking it a bit too far. That's why t-shirts were invented. Not that I mind strapping young lads, mind you. I just don't want to be jarred out of the movie to witness them.
• What happened to that scene from GoF that I have in my banner of the trio on the steps. Did I miss that? I don't remember seeing it in the movie at all.

The Very, Very Bad

• That stupid, stupid tongue flick they assigned to Barty Crouch Jr. as a nervous tick. HATED THAT. Should have left that part out completely. It's not like there weren't ample hints as to something funny going on (An appropriate use of the phrase "anvil sized hints" if I've ever heard one). And why on earth didn't they show/explain that he died at the end. Surely they couldn't be leaving that open for a future comeback, right? RIGHT?!?
• Wormtail. The man didn't even grovel once!! He didn't whimper, he didn't beg, he didn't scream in pain. In short, he was a dutiful servant of Voldemort who willingly cut off his own hand with nary as much as a second thought about doing it, and not a single plead for Voldemort to hustle about giving him a new hand.
• Michael Gambon as Dumbledore. For god's sake, can someone PLEASE make that man read the books? He doesn't want to read anything other than the screenplays that he's given - I get it. But by doing so he's single-handedly changing a monumentally important character, and thereby changing how the other characters relate to him. Why the hell should the trio (or anyone, for that matter) trust him and want to work with him in the Order of the Phoenix if he treats them like they're all stupid kids who have no business making their own decisions. Has the man never heard of the concept of acting in an understated manner? It must be one of the few times where an actor has so very much written - thousands of pages - that clue you in as to the character's motivations, and yet the man does NOTHING with that information. I miss Richard Harris.
• Each task seemed to get progressively easier in the movie, when in the book each task was jsut as difficult (if not more so) than the one before. Aside from the sheer size of the maze the entire task (before the cup turned into a portkey, of course) was disappointing. Mist and fog and moving hedges. Woo.
• The parting of the ways between Dumbledore and Fudge is not nearly as powerful as it needed to be in order to set up properly for the following films.
• So many of the small (and sometimes the big) details were omitted. And those are the things that make the fandom so rabid. It's a bit of a shame, really. But here's a decent, if concise, description of many of the things that were missing in the film.