Fantastic movie, just not Harry Potter

Rating: 7/10 (23 April 2006)

I must admit, after all the hubbub and excitement that had arisen around the Goblet of Fire, I went to the cinema in very high spirits and came out of it with mixed feelings.
Here's my negative criticism.
To begin with, the film consisted of literally nothing but the quidditch cup, the three tournament events, and the strict minimum of peripheric scenes, (inserted and rushed-through), essential to the plausibility of the plot. Consequently, all sub-plots were eliminated, as were all the scenes which were irrelevant to the central plot.
As a result of that, you didn't see any character development at all, nor any interaction between the protagonists which showed progression in their relationships (Harry's evolution being one of the essential elements of book 4, which is the mark between Harry's pre-teen years and his adolescence.) The actors were forced to evolve and interact in short spaces of time. So there is no real sense of change or progression in either the characters themselves or their relationships.
Also because of the scene-cutting, you had no impression whatsoever of actually being at Hogwarts, let alone spending an entire year in the castle; the daily-life routine of the trio at Hogwarts was simply cast aside. No visits to Hagrid, scarcely any dormitory scenes, barely a glimpse of breakfast in the great hall and not one, single, measly classroom scene a part from an extract of Moody's first lesson.
In addition, because of this lack of daily-life scenes, all the relatively major characters except for the trio, Dumbledore and some might argue McGonagall, had barely more than three words to say.
I also, however, have positive criticism to divulge:
First of all, the actors exceeded all expectations: Daniel Radcliffe provoked genuine sadness in me when he returned to Hogwarts with Cedric's body. Rupert Grint played Ron to perfection, giving incredible depth to his character and yet managing to remain funny; successfully playing Harry's frustrated sidekick, Hermione's jealous admirer and nevertheless their most loyal friend. Emma Watson played equally well; she portrayed a still insecure Hermione and consequently "know-it-all" and rule-abiding at the core, yet going through the experiences of being a teenager and gaining with them more confidence, strength and security.
Ginny actually made an appearance, (she finally seems allowed to be a real teenager), and showed for the first time a sense of humour; I was wondering, reading books 5 and 6, how on earth Bonnie Wright was going to pull off growing up and being the most popular girl in Gryffindor in the space of the next few movies. But the snippets we saw of her in the film, though too short, seemed promising.
Therefore, coming back to my negative criticism, it was a shame that the depth and changes of all these characters were not further exploited in all their interactions and dialogues; instead restrained to the few non-tournament- related scenes.
However, to me, the greatest revelation of all in GoF, was Matthew Lewis, who plays Neville Longbottom. I was so incredibly touched by his performance; you can't help but feel endeared to his clumsy, awkward, yet totally pure personality. I thought he was stunningly moving in the scene in which he watches the cruciatus curse performed on a spider.
Fred and George were funny for once, as opposed to the last three films, in which their jokes were too few and, honestly, not all that great, compared to the witty retorts and bubbling personalities of the book-version twins.
Secondly, there was, most importantly, good chemistry between the main actors, which was much more concentrated on and exposed than in the first three films.
Thirdly, the special effects were spectacular. I admit, though, that I'm only mentioning them as a result of having read other reviews of the movie. For in actual fact I didn't even think about the special effects. Which is exactly what makes them so spectacular. Indeed, if a person is able to watch a movie composed 90% out of special effects without even thinking once about them, they must be pretty fantastic. You simply are at Hogwarts. When Harry confronts the horntail, he is in a stadium. When he goes down into the lake, you're there too. And when he gets transported to Little Hangleton, so do you.
To sum things up, I think Mike Newell felt the need to shorten, cut and discard things because of his fear of Goblet of Fire receiving the same, harsh criticism as Chris Columbus's two movies did. Critics declared Columbus was much too loyal to the books and therefore stretched out his work into a pace-less, far-too-long film. Mike Newell, wanting to avoid this trap, decided to cast away anything which was not essential to the plot and simplify it: who could blame him? How, in a two-hour-movie, could any director find the time to naturally slip in all the clues JK Rowling has carefully woven into her book? To describe all of book 4, you'd need 10 hours.
However, in this urge to keep the film quick-paced and fresh, Newell instead made it choppy, rushed and unfluid. This made for the overall impression of wanting to compress as much as possible (character growth, interaction, sub- plots, life at Hogwarts, the quidditch world cup and the triwizard tournament) into a certain amount of time, like trying to stuff 80 sardines into a can designed for 10.
In conclusion, I would say that the film had all the makings of a masterpiece; a flabbergasting cast, great chemistry, top-notch special effects, much, much humour and a lot of emotion; but focusing on the triwizard tournament and the central plot, Mike Newell cut out the rest of the book, and, with it, the very essence of Harry and Hogwarts itself. So what was there was fantastic  but there wasn't a heck of a lot there