...the Potter movie series has not only not run out of steam but appears to be getting better as it goes along.
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The biggest knock I've heard from viewers about 2005's "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," the fourth installment in the R.K. Rowling's "Potter" series, is that it cuts out too much of the book. Well, think about it: The book is enormously long, and the movie is about two-and-a-half hours. Something had to give, and I believe the screenwriter and director made the right decisions about what to keep and what to toss out.
OK, so we no longer have an opening episode with the Dursleys, Harry's horrid aunt, uncle, and cousin. We can live without it as it offered up nothing new in the book. Hermione has no crusade to free the house elves. Again, no loss as it was extraneous to the story, anyhow. The irritating, mean-spirited reporter, Rita Skeeter, shows up less, as does Harry's godfather, Sirius, and there is little mention of giants. Plus, there any number of tiny details that should have been cut from the book to begin with. Face it, fans: Rowling is an excessively wordy author who got wordier as the "Potter" books went on. She could use a good editor, and the filmmakers did us a service editing her material.
The fact is, this is the best "Potter" movie in the series so far. The first two installments were cute and charming in a whimsical sort of way, culminating in exciting battles and all, but they were largely juvenile entertainments befitting Harry's young age. As Harry got older, the series got appropriately darker, with episode three, "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban," being very dark, indeed. I liked the look, but "Azkaban" also felt the most unfinished of the movies, like a mere transition, while the first two movies were fairly self-contained. In other words, although episode three looked good, it didn't have a lot to say. Now, we have "The Goblet of Fire," and all the best elements of the "Potter" films come together. The characters have matured, the tone and atmosphere of the story are more serious, and the plot holds together on its own. Naysayers notwithstanding, it's a darned good movie.
British director Mike Newell ("The Awakening," "Four Weddings and a Funeral," "Donnie Brasco") and screenwriter Steve Kloves (among others, "Wonder Boys" plus the previous "Potter" films) have appropriately pared down Rowling's sprawling 734-page hardbound novel into its most basic story constituents. The movie opens as the book does, with Harry having a vision of dire foreshadowing, and then it dispenses with the usual business of Harry's home life with the Dursleys. After all, we know that Harry has outgrown the Dursleys, and Hogwarts is Harry's real home now, so we shift immediately there and the Quidditch World Cup.
Anyway, in this fourth installment in the "Potter" series, Harry has to face on the one hand his old nemesis, Lord Voldemort, determined to regain human form, and on the other hand an even bigger challenge--girls. Let's concentrate on the Voldemort side. It's time for the big Triwizard Tournament, a wizarding competition involving the best representatives of the three major wizarding schools in the world, and this year it's being held at Hogworts. However, you have to be at least seventeen years old to enter, so Harry knows he has no chance. If you're old enough, you throw your name into the Goblet of Fire, and the cup picks the best persons to compete; the goblet is kind of like the Sorting Hat, with a mind of its own. Then something surprising happens. Without entering his name in the competition, the Goblet chooses Harry along with another boy, Cedric Diggory, as Hogworts' representatives. So Harry is in whether he likes it or not.
The competition involves contending in several events with dragons and underwater rescues and mazes and such, but more important to our story is that Voldemort wants to use this contest to lure Harry to his death. It seems that only Harry's blood can help restore "He Who Must Not Be Named" to human form, and despite Dumbledore's best efforts to protect Harry, Voldemort is keen to grab him and do him in just the same.
The contests themselves are fun to watch, imaginative and exciting. Harry's interrelationships with his friends Ron and Hermione are more complex than ever, with mistrust and jealousies running amok. Harry's evening at a big Yule Ball goes terribly awry. And his confrontation with Voldemort makes for a reasonably thrilling, if early, climax.
All the usual characters make an appearance, played by mostly the same actors as before, lending a nice continuity to the series, plus a few new ones. Among others, Daniel Radcliffe is back as Harry; Rupert Grint and Emma Watson are again Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger; Michael Gambon is Albus Dumbledore; Robbie Coltrane is Hagrid; Maggie Smith is Professor McGonnagall; Alan Rickman is Servius Snape; Gary Oldman is Sirius Black (although you'd barely know him, his part is so brief); Julie Walters is Mrs. Weasley; Mark Williams is Mr. Weasley; Timothy Spall is Wormtail; Warwick Davis is Professor Flitwick; Robert Hardy is Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic; Tom Felton is Draco Malfoy; and Jason Issacs is Lucius Malfoy, Draco's father.
New to the cast are Miranda Richardson as the meddlesome reporter, Rita Skeeter, a delightfully nasty character whose role in the film, as I say, is much reduced from the book; Brendan Gleason as Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody, an eccentric old wizard pressed into teaching duties at Hogworts; Robert Pattinson as Cedric Diggory, Hogworts' co-champion; Stanislav Ianevski and Clemence Poesy as Viktor Krum and Fleur Delacour, rival champions; Roger Lloyd-Pack as Barty Crouch, a representative of the Ministry of Magic; Katie Leung as Cho Chang, the light of Harry's eye; Frances de la Tour as Madame Maxime, a rival school's headmistress and the light of Hagrid's eye; Pedja Bjelac as Igor Karkaroff, another rival headmaster; and Ralph Fiennes, practically unrecognizable under a ton of reptilian makeup, as Lord Voldemort.
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