Teenage angst in the magical world

I’ve been giving way too much space for the latest Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, so I guess let me finish it off by giving a thorough review of the movie. If you don’t read the books and only watch the films, please be warned that I’d be giving away major spoilers. If you read the books and want to be surprised when you watch the film, then by all means, don’t read this; because you are up for a series of spoilers. But fret not, it’s not like I’m going to give you a blow-by-blow account of what happens in the movie.

So here we go.

Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) just turned fourteen and he’s spending the last weeks of summer before his fourth year at Hogwarts with Hermione (Emma Watson) and the Weasley family; they went to one of the most awaited sporting event in the wizarding world, the Quidditch World Cup. In here, they get to meet the famous Viktor Krum (Stanislav Ianevski) and the Death Eaters (followers of Lord Voldemort), and for the first time in thirteen years, the dark mark is seen again. Before such incident, Harry’s scar had been hurting and had a dream of Voldemort inside an old house with his loyal minion Peter Pettigrew (Timothy Spall) and pet snake, Nagini.

Peter Pettigrew? Yes, Ron’s (Rupert Grint) rat, that animagus (used to be a friend of Harry’s father) that escaped during that scuffle in Prisoner of Azkaban. (I’m going to discuss here something that was left out in film three.) Remember the map given to Harry on his third year? Weren’t you surprised that Professor Lupin knows that that bit of old parchment is a map? Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs are friends and very much familiar with Remus Lupin (David Thewlis). Moony is Lupin, because – well – he’s a werewolf; Wormtail is Peter, of course, because he turns into a rat; Padfoot is Sirius Black (Gary Oldman), who can turn into dog; and Prongs is Harry’s father, James, who has a stag for an animagus – stag is Harry’s patronus, ever noticed that?

Back to the fourth year, Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) welcomes back the students and announces that there won’t be any Quidditch for the school year, but there’s going to be a Triwizard tournament instead. This is a very dangerous competition of three famous European wizarding schools and it will be held in Hogwarts, and – oh – students from the Beauxbaton Academy and Durmstrang Institute will be spending the whole year in Hogwarts. Just so you know, Beauxbaton isn’t an all-girls school, but in the movie the girls were so feminine that they fart butterflies (that’s from John Noe of Leaky Cauldron); Durmstrang isn’t an all-boys school either.

Though Harry and Ron wanted to enter the tournament, they can’t, because of the age limit, and besides it’s the Goblet who decides who’s going to represent each school. Like in the Harry Potter tradition during Halloween (first year, troll in the dungeons; second year, first attack of the basilisk; third year, Sirius Black enters the Gryffindor tower), a curious thing happened during the triwizard selection. After spitting the three names of the champions: Cedric Diggory (Robert Pattison) for Hogwarts, Fleur Delacour (Clémence Poésy) for Beaubaxton, and Viktor Krum for Durmstrang, another parchment off-shoot from the goblet and Dumbledore shouts: Harry Potter!



This made Ron angry and jealous, of course, because Harry got in the limelight again; only Hermione believed that Harry did not voluntarily put his name in the cup, and was terribly worried for him. Someone is definitely rooting for Harry to die in the tournament, and so the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Alastor “Mad-eye” Moody (Brendan Gleeson), was asked to keep an eye on Harry.

The movie’s backbone is the three tasks that the champions will to go through in the tournament. The first task is getting the golden egg from a fire-spewing dragon; the second task is diving into the Black Lake to rescue the “thing” they’re going to miss the most from the merpeople; and the last task is going though a maze of tall, vicious hedges with mini-tasks in each turn. In this final task, Harry was finally brought to face his nemesis, Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes), in his newly created body.

Interspersed with all this danger is another kind of daunting task Harry has to face – the opposite sex. The Yule Ball is at hand, yet our famous hero can’t find the courage to ask the pretty but older Ravenclaw seeker, Cho Chang (Katie Leung), whom he’s got a crush on since third year. On the other hand, Ron finally notices that Hermione is a girl, and who is getting the attention of the famous Quidditch player and triwizard champion, Krum. Though, Harry is pining for Cho, he spends most of his time with gal-pal Hermione, which led Rita Skeeter (Miranda Richardson) to believe that there is something far deeper between these two than friendship.

This is the best Potter film, and Mike Newell (Four Weddings and A Funeral) did his job well – when Alfonso Cuaron transformed the franchise for the better (more artsy), Mike took it one step further. Steve Kloves did an amazing job in condensing the 700+ pages of the book into one amazing movie experience. Patrick Doyle contributed so much with the musical score keeping the theme started by John Williams and further enhanced with pop overlay. Five years since the release of the first Potter film, the three lead young actors have finally blossomed into their roles. Though we have already much of the Hogwarts grounds, viewers were treated with the all-new, beautiful owlery, and, of course, the vast sets for the world cup and the humongous maze.



Hard core book fans might grimace while watching the film, please remember that all the 700+ pages couldn’t be crammed into a two and a half hour film. Don’t fuss over the minutiae. Okay, you missed the Dursleys and seeing Dudley with a swollen tongue; or Winky, the whiny elf of the Crouch family; or Dobby the free elf, who helped Harry with the gillyweed and giving Harry socks for his Christmas present; or Hermione going on and on about the elves welfare; or the visit at a cave with Sirius Black and Buckbeak; or Bill Weasley meeting his future fiancé Fleur; or Mrs. Weasley worrying about the twins; or Percy Weasley being such a pompous ass; or the whole Quidditch game between Ireland and Bulgaria; or the magical creatures inside the maze.

There was never a dull moment or scene all throughout the movie; the first fifteen minutes of the film already covered more than one hundred and fifty pages of the book. The Dark Mark was awesome, both in the sky and in the Death Eaters’ forearms, only that Barty Crouch, Jr (David Tennant) conjured it late in the mayhem at the Quidditch cup; it was suppose to be during the attacks of the Death Eaters, which caused them to stop and scamper, and it was Harry’s wand that was used. One thing I miss though is hearing Fleur speak. We don’t get to hear her say, “But evidently zair ‘as been a mistake. E cannot compete. ‘E is too young.” She was supposed to be arrogant and Hermione hates her. Or Krum, who only have two speaking lines: “You ‘av no right to be ‘ere, only the champions ‘r allowed inside the tent.”. I wish they showed how he’s having a hard time pronouncing Hermione’s name: “Vare is Herm-own-ninny?”

The first task was amazing; though it wasn’t in the book that the dragon’s chains snapped and that it chased Harry all over the Hogwarts’ grounds. You can tell from that scene that Harry was a goner, only that you know there are three more books to cover. I love that they have given more thought on Neville’s (Matthew Lewis) plotline, and that spiel “Oh no, I killed Harry Potter!” was hilarious. The Patil twins looked okay, but I wish they look more gorgeous. In the movie, it was implied that they belong to the same house; Padma is actually a Ravenclaw. We also get to see the bookworm Hermione – finally! Hermione looked gorgeous at the Yule Ball, but hard-core fans were screaming that she’s wearing the wrong colour. She’s supposed to wear a periwinkle blue dress and Harry a bottle-green robe – colours of the house the sorting hat first thought of putting them in (Ravenclaw and Slytherin). Speaking of Slytherin, I love the ferret scene; I bet it will set off a thousand fanfictions. Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton) is turning to be such a suave; I wish we got to see him in his all-black outfit during the Yule Ball as a treat for all those fangirls.

The actress who played Cho Chang was chosen for her heavy Scottish accent, and you could see right through her that she got the hots for Harry. She looks so sweet and all, but if you read the books – well, we all know how a horrible person she could be (a human hosepipe). The underwater second task looked great. They made the bubblehead charm look chic, but the persons they have to rescue beneath the lake looked so unreal (obviously they used dummies). The merpeople looked scary and so are the grindylows. Even though I missed seeing Dobby giving Harry the gillyweed, it’s logical to replace him with Neville.



I wish they have given more depth to the fall-out between Harry and Ron, than just saying things like “You’re a great foul git, you know that!” I wanted to see Harry terribly angry at Ron’s jealousy that he threw a badge at Ron and wished him to get a scar of his own. We don’t get to see much how Ron was so jealous of Krum after the Yule Brawl that he ripped his Krum toy figure. Rupert Grint did a good job in this film, gone are his scared-yucky facial expressions, and his comic timing was spot-on. Speaking of comic, this is the humorous among the four films, though ominously dark.

Seeing Cedric’s character go inside the maze almost made my heart skip, and I finally broke down when Harry returned with his body after the graveyard incident. The return of Voldemort (pronounce it with a silent T please) was excellent. It was everything as I have imagined in the book – even how he looks like. One thing that bothered me was that You-Know-Who didn’t have a hard time making Harry bow down with the Imperius curse; but the Priori Incantatem phenomena was just as how I pictured it.

The Moody sub-plot was well presented; it was way too obvious for the book reader but a good surprise for those who only watch the films. Hmm, I wonder what’s he drinking from that flask, bet it’s not pumpkin juice. The Prefect’s bathroom scene was so hilarious, and for one moment I was scared for Daniel’s modesty. Moaning Myrtle (Shirley Henderson) was so funny and she was close to making the film rated R18. We miss the kiss on Harry’s cheek from Hermione, though; but who cares? It’s not like they’re going to get together. Right now, even if I have a Harry loves Hermione bracelet, I’d root for Moaning Myrtle and Harry getting together. You know, Harry dying in the last book and he goes back to Hogwarts as a ghost and he and Myrtle spend most of their time at the bathroom – only that Myrtle is dating some boy now during Harry’s sixth year, that stuck-up snob. Whee! There's another dropped-out part wherein Krum comfronts Harry about Harry and Hermione's relationship, who cares? It doesn't matter; they're not gonna end up together, anyway.

Seeing Dumbledore saying to Harry that difficult times lie ahead for him almost made me cry one more time. Yes, Harry is up for more deaths. If Cedric’s death here can break you to pieces, wait for the coming death in the Order of the Phoenix and that other momentous one in the Half-Blood Prince.

Goblet of Fire was made to be a blockbuster movie and it is. I would love to watch it one more time in the theater and again and again in DVD.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask; I’d gladly clarify some things for you. I have more pictures, but if I post them all, you’ll be seeing the entire film.