very poorly made

Rating: 3/10 (20 November 2005)

As hyped up as this movie was, i was extremely disappointed. I am a huge fan of the books, and a fan of the other movies. I realize the director and writers had only a short time span to work with(even the most devoted harry potter fan would not sit through the 9 or 10 hours the full book would take up in movie form) but even so,they left out extremely crucial pieces of the plot, and instead of the intricately woven plot that Rowling put together in the book, the movie was summarized into a few jarring, disconnected scenes which barely captured the very essentials of the book. And even this wasn't very well thought out. The scene where Barty crouch jr. is revealed is the place in the book where everything the reader has been wondering about is suddenly pulled together as voldemort's ingenious plan is slowly unraveled. Instead in the movie, when the time comes, nothing the viewer didn't already know is revealed. And now for those of you who are shaking their heads at my comment and saying "they did a terrific job with what they were given" even you can't argue with my next point. They altered the very personalities of two main characters. For the observant ones out there i'm sure you know I'm referring to Cedric Diggory and Albus Dumbledore. Lets start with Diggory, in the book he was known as a kind hearted, noble boy who always did his best to be fair(a bit of a pansy in my opinion, but maybe thats a little harsh) in the movie, in the scene where harry and Cedric are desperately sprinting towards the cup(minus one giant spider....but i'm done complaining about all the things they left out) Cedric not actually *shoves* harry out of the way as he runs, not giving harry a backwards glance. And as they approach the cup together, instead of looking at harry with a mixture of longing for the cup and thankfulness to harry for saving his butt, he snaps at harry to take the cup with seemingly nothing in his tone but regret and anger that he feels he now owes the cup to harry. thats not the Cedric diggory readers of the series have grown to love. And albus dumbledore was much more fierce and violent than he is in the books. the whole purpose of dumbledore is that he is quiet, calm, and above everything. almost godlike(before the 6th book) in this one, when he discovers Barty crouch with harry in the end, he actually *throttles* him with his bare hands and asks to know where alastor is. This type of muggle violence is so uncharacteristic of the real albus. So all in all, quite disappointing movie, although i will say one thing. Daniel Radcliffe and his crew have come a long way. The fact that this movie was a total travesty is by no means the fault of the crew, who did an excellent job. And looked very good doing it. (I'm referring mainly to the ill fated Cedric diggory. may he rest in peace)