Product: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)
Rating: 2.0
Firing the Goblet
In a nutshell: glossy but sometimes too much like a typical high school film and not enough of an epic. Certain subplots and resolutions were cut, for better or worse (SPEW, Rita Skeeter's come uppance)Dan Radcliffe is still fine in his role, but Rupert Grint and Emma Watson are still horrible in theirs. Let's face it: the filmmakers never understood the characters of Ron & Hermione and never understood their dynamic, and the lackluster handling of the Yule Ball, with over the top acting from Watson and virtually no acting from Grint, just proves that the filmmakers completely failed with them (and I'm saying that as someone who always thought the Yule Ball was a bloated, overblown chapter). Not to mention that Watson, who cannot act to save her life, looked like a giant bottle of Pepto Bismol in that ugly eye soar of a hideous pink dress (originally a blue dress in the book).Ron & Hermione pretty much no longer exist in the films at this point. These characters Grint & Watson are playing are not Ron & Hermione and never will be. Watson has always played Hermione as more of a shallow, spoiled school princess than a well meaning bookworm, and she comes off as being kinda bitchy, so you don't really feel any sympathy for her when Ron "ruins" her night out. Grint has almost always played Ron as a useless coward (with help from the filmmakers). These 2 unappealing characterizations just aren't worth it.