Action, action, action!

Rating: 6/10 (27 November 2005)

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is the longest book in the Harry Potter series: 734 pages. When the movie adaptation was first discussed, the plan was to make two movies out of the book, to give room for all the sub-plots and emotional development of the characters. The filmmakers should have stuck with plan A. Although the movie is visually spectacular and action-packed, the film suffers from the editing required to squeeze the massive book into a single movie.
The special effects and CGI of the film are seamlessly integrated with the live action, making for stunning visual magic (and for a production budget of $150 million, you should expect nothing less). I couldn't help but hold my breath during the sequence where Harry battled a Hungarian horn-tailed dragon. I jumped a bit when the mer-people attacked Harry while he was underwater, rescuing his friends. And the scene of the evil Lord Voldemort's reincarnation made my skin crawl.
But good visuals are only part of the movie. In the previous three installments of the HP saga, the emotional bond and development of the intrepid trio of Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger made for sympathetic characters. The compaction of the Goblet of Fire book squeezed most of the life out of the characters, despite the film's focus on issues of teenage romantic angst. Harry, in particular, came off as bland. Although this may be partly due to condensing the book, I wonder if Dan Radcliffe, who plays Harry, simply doesn't have the skills to both make Harry a wizardly action hero and a flesh-and-blood person with so much action demanded of him. Ron Weasley comes off the best, seeming the most like a real, male teenager: filled with conflicting emotions about his friends, fear and ignorance about girls, and grunting as a substitute for talking. Plus, Rupert Grint, who portrays Ron, shows a deft comic touch.
Brendon Gleeson, who plays Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody, the Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts, is also a hoot. Gleeson walks the tightrope between wanting to protect his students and coming completely unhinged from the accumulated trauma of fighting dark magic all his life. He can go from entertaining his students to scaring the living daylights out of them and back before they can catch their breaths. In his best scene, he is fiercely protective of Harry, inappropriate, and scandalously funny, all at the same time.
The portrayal of Dumbledore, however, is completely inconsistent with the prior films. He's devolved from Richard Harris' calm, wise, benevolent, and subtle 2000-yr-old headmaster to Michael Gambon's moody, uncertain, and twitchy bundle of nerves -- like a robed Al Pacino on a bad day. In the first three Potter films, I could easily believe that Voldemort would fear Dumbledore's skill and cunning. Now, I'm equally certain that Voldemort could dispense with Dumbledore by paralyzing him with his own indecision.
As a piece of teenage entertainment, the movie is several cuts about the pack of typical action flicks aimed as this age group. In addition to the great production values, I think teens will relate to the awkwardness in dating protocols and rituals. The loyalty that the three friends display despite their growing pains and Harry's moral fortitude under duress provide good role modeling. But as an adult, I wanted more meat on the bones of this part of the saga.