Another missed opportunity

Rating: 3/10 (28 November 2005)

GOF, like the last 2 films in particular, has left me feeling disappointed and extremely annoyed. The directors and screen writers are moving further and further away from the books. They feel they must create Hollywood-style blockbusters - high on spectacle and special effects but low on plot and characters.
Harry's first task involved him being chased by a dragon around Scotland demolishing castles in the process. This was almost as ludicrous as the flying car and train sequence in Chamber of Secrets (or the incredibly tacky ending when Hagrid returned to the school).
OK, I know some settings were very pretty - the Yule Ball and Underwater 2nd Task particularly so. However it is paramount that the audience had thoroughly read the book - otherwise many parts of the film would be absolutely meaningless.
From start to finish the film appeared to be a race against time with subplots and characters disappearing by the score. The Quidditch World Cup was a non-event (Who won? Who cared!).
Barty Crouch Junior suddenly appeared in what looked like a battlefield and apparently had devastated everything himself.
Did Harry actually tell Dumbledore that he had just found Barty Crouch Senior hurt/maimed/dead in the forest or did Dumbledore just rush out the office on the off-chance?
I am not naive enough to believe that every line from the book must be preserved. But the concept of "I am the the director and know better than the author" has gone way beyond the acceptable here. Little of JKR's wording has been retained. Worse still the characterisations have been drastically altered.
Dumbledore is no longer the solidly dependable guardian figure who believes in Harry and Harry's destiny. The wonderful character of Rita Skeeter could have been omitted from this film for all the effect she had. The goofs and omissions surrounding Sirius Black were appalling. None of Voldemort's Deatheaters seemed interested in his resurrection - let alone being scared to death. Where was the snivelling Wormtail at the rebirth of Voldemort? The Peter Pettegrew in the film could have passed for a TV chef.
The humour of all eccentric characters has been eliminated and their appearance in the film serves just to provide cheap laughs.
Book 4 is the pivotal book of the series. Its central characters are now young adults full of teenage angst. Evil has been let loose upon the Magical World which stands at the brink of catastrophe. Little of this comes across in this film. This movie ended with Hermione telling the boys to write to her over the summer????
I know that we shall soon hear that this is the nth highest grossing movies of all time and everyone associated with will be nominated for Oscars. There is such affection for JKR's books that this is inevitable - no matter how bad the movie
The HP films are just travesties of what they could have been. It is a crying shame that Peter Jackson didn't tackle this project