Too bad they didn't have enough time to do it

Rating: 5/10 (25 March 2006)

At this point, it doesn't matter how well filmed an adaptation it is, these movies are only going to come off like two-and-a-half-hour long commercials for the book.
All the usual cast return for the very middle of the series, all in their robes and ready to say their lines and get out of the way of the camera for the next shot so that we can fit it all in. Several questions come to mind watching these young and intrepid kids trying their best to be their characters: What's gonna happen to these young stars after it's all over? Is Daniel Radcliffe disappointed that at this point he has no chance of learning how to act with ever shortening takes in which to deliver his lines? Will Rupert Grint ever be taken seriously after doing seven movies in a row about being a hero's buffoonish sidekick? What about that young man playing Draco Malfoy? He seems the type to become one of those typecast badguys that everyone loves to hate. At least that seems fun. Though I must say if I were Daniel Radcliff and company, I would totally rake in the cash I get from this endeavor and spend the rest of my life reading Dante, Milton, and Dostoyevsky without the translations.
Really that's what was fun about this movie, watching it through the eyes of a talent scout and thinking, "Where can all this talent go?" Sure, all of them do their jobs spectacularly. Too bad they didn't have enough time to do it. In fact, it wasn't until after the movie ended that I suddenly realized that I would have had no idea what was going on had I read the book. This movie fails to do some basic narrative things that create gaping plot holes: Uh, okay so yeah, Barty Crouch Jr. is a death eater and all. But, uh, where did he come from? How did he manage to do all of that? When did he capture Moody? Oops... all that work and the basic premise of the movie is completely disregarded.
But it was fun. Ralph Fiennes makes a great Voldemort, even if he didn't have time to be truly evil. Instead he succeeds admirably at being creepy. Good stuff.
This film is also important in that it reveals that pop music is just as terrible in fantasy worlds as it is in real ones. So much for escapism, eh? --PolarisDiB