Friday night, my wife and I went to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I thought that I was clever in deciding to see a late showing in order to avoid a theatre full of children. I was mistaken; there was a theatre full of teens and pre-teens. This was much worse. Anyways, onto my review.

I had read in several places that this part of the Harry Potter story was more dark and marked in loss of innocence in the realm of the Harry Potter series. As with NY Times, I must advise against kids under 13 seeing this movie for one reason: 2 people die, one of which is a teenager. For those of you who have not read the book, any reviews, see the movie yet, or just don’t care to spoil the movie, I would recommend you stop reading the rest of this post as to give a full review because I may divulge story elements in my review.

If you are still reading this, I have to say that first and foremost, this was a good movie. There are still glaring flaws in the story but that is not the director’s or producer’s fault as this is merely a screen adaption. When I refer to story elements within the review, I am actually reviewing Rowlings’ work.

That being said, the film was well made. There were no glaring mistakes, the actors looked the appropriate age, and the sets were masterfully crafted. I still think that there was a bit too much CG, but I don’t suppose there is a real dragon out there that Harry’s character can fight.

Now, onto the story. This story was as if there was either a long period between it and the previous segment or written by a completely different author. All of the three main characters seemed to have displayed traits that did not exist before. In fact, Hermione and Ron barely played any part in the story at all. Hermione suddenly grew this gigantic attitude problem. Ron became extremely jealous of Harry. Harry was not very inquisitive and appeared to be apathetic to most matters.

The story about the Tri-Wizard cup was actually a huge waste of time. In fact, it only proved to act as a segway into Voldemort’s return. The whole movie can be summed up in the final 30 or 45 minutes. Basically, Harry is entered, somehow, into the tournament against his will and the regulations. He competes the 2 initial tasks, not because he was ingenius or clever, but because he lucked out and other people (even a contestant) gave him huge clues. The trials did not develop Harry’s character at all; in fact he seemed to have VERY few lines in the movie.

There was a major plot element however, which served to show that the characters were finally growing up. Many parts in the story tried to show the awkward nature of being a teenager. The formal dance was was a good example. Harry had to ask a girl to attend with him which goes to show he’s a moron with the ladies. Ron also dons this ancient dress robe that looks like something a woman in the 1800’s wore; he is justly mocked. There was even a gratuitus concert-style shot that was most unlike the rest of the movie (or previous movies for that matter).

Voldemort was played by Ralph Finnes, which was well suited. If anyone can play one creepy bad guy, it’s him (go check out Red Dragon if you don’t believe me). His return was the whole point of this story and this segment in the story was mostly a bridge into the next 3 segments. Finnes played a heartless and cruel person well. In fact, his presence seemed as if he was a magical being of much higher calibur than anything presented thus far. Like the NY Times said, it was as if his robe floated above his skin rather than sat upon it.

After reading all about Voldemort on his wiki, it sounds as if the next movie is the one I was really waiting to see. That being said, this was still a good movie which provided plenty of good action.

My rating (of 10): 7