Harry Brings Da’ Heat in the Goblet of Fire

You know that feeling when you’re so excited about a movie coming out in theaters that you get this cold chill like sensation running through your body as you’re sitting in your seat? Like in the opening scene you just feel like you’re there and everything you may have visualized before the movie end up coming alive on the screen. That’s exactly how I felt when I was sitting in my seat sipping my drink and munching on popcorn, as my attention was completely on the movie the entire time. There are some movies where at times your mind just wanders around and you can’t help it, but with Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire I was completely immersed in the world of Harry Potter on the big screen, for the fourth time. There are all sorts of nerdy addictions in this world. My latest nerdy addiction is of course Harry Potter. I’ve read all six books that are currently published, my excitement for the seventh and conclusion to the series rising every single day, and have now seen all four movies with different impressions, but engrossed by every one (save for Prisoner of Azkaban’s seemingly quick progression that had me feeling like, “what? It’s over already?”).

For those that haven’t picked up a Harry Potter book and become addicted to the series, Harry Potter was left on his Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia’s doorsteps when he was one year old by a wizard named Dumbledore. Earlier that night, Harry’s parents were killed by a powerful dark wizard named Lord Voldemort (Tom Riddle, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named), and when the dark lord tried to kill Harry his spell backfired on him, leaving a lightning bolt shaped scar on Harry’s head that signified his triumph over the dark lord. After living in hell with his Aunt and Uncle, Harry finds out he’s a wizard at the age of 10 and goes the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is the fourth book in the series, and each book is a different year of Harry’s life at Hogwarts (so in the movie/book he’s in his fourth year of school at Hogwarts, they go seven).

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

The Goblet of Fire is the longest book in the series, exceeding well over 1000 pages. I was worried about how director Mike Newell would be able to shrink the book into the movie without cutting out important things in the book, as I am sure most other fans were worried about it as well. Troublesome times lie ahead for Harry Potter. After finding out his Godfather Sirius Black’s innocence in the death of Harry’s parents at the end of Prisoner of Azkaban, the real perpetrator had been under everyone’s noses all along. Peter Pettigrew, or otherwise known as Wormtail escaped, and Sirius was forced to retreat into hiding since Wormtail escaped.

Now in the Goblet of Fire, Hogwarts has been chosen to host the coveted Tri-Wizard tournament against two other schools. The tournament is a dangerous competition of courage, wit, and balls that must be used to complete each of the three tasks. There is a death toll that comes with this tournament, so it’s not like throwing your name nonchalantly like you’re entering a raffle. Each school is represented by one school champion of at least 17 years of age, chosen by the Goblet of Fire after interested candidates throw their names on a piece of parchment into the goblet. Fleur Delacour (Angelica Mandy) was chosen from Beauxbatons, Viktor Krum (Stanislav Ianevski) from Durmstrang, and the Hogwarts champion was to be Cedric Diggory (Robert Pattinson). As Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) starts to continue, the Goblet spits out a fourth name. ”HARRY POTTER!” booms from his voice, as Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) slowly walks into the room with the other three champions. The Tri-Wizard tournament is suppose to only have three champions, and Harry is only 14 years old. Somehow Harry’s name was entered into the Goblet, and according to the tournament rules Harry must compete.

Now Harry, scared out of his mind, must take on the daunting tasks of the tournament. At the same time, his best friend Ron (Rupert Grint) thinks that Harry somehow put his name into the goblet and is mad that he didn’t even tell him, his best friend. As the Harry Potter series began its darker theme in the Prisoner of Azkaban, the Goblet of Fire actually received a PG-13 rating because of how dark the books are getting, which means the films will be too.

For the moviegoers that haven’t actually read the books, the Goblet of Fire is entertaining as a standalone. Anyone that’s read the books though will have noticed a lot of things that were cut, stuff that was added, and some actors that acted out of their character’s personality from the books. For one, the Quidditch World Cup is barely seen, and it moves quickly from seeing the stadium, to the dark mark being shot into the air, and straight to Harry, Ron, and Hermione (Emma Watson, man she is so good looking, I feel like a pervert every time I see the new Harry Potter movie because of her) at Hogwarts. Then instead of Dumbledore announcing that Hogwarts would be hosting the Tri-Wizard cup this year and that the other two schools Beauxbatons and Durmstrang would be arriving in October, they arrive soon after the Hogwarts students arrive. One thing that really surprised me was after Harry’s name was spit out of the Goblet and he was in the room, Dumbledore came charging through raising his voice to Harry and getting physical with him. That is completely out of Dumbledore’s character. He is always calm, laid back, and just has a legendary aurora surrounding him – he would never raise his voice or get physical with him like what happened in the movie.

This brings me to my qualms with Michael Gambon, who was cast as Dumbledore when Richard Harris died after filming the second movie the Chamber of Secrets. I personally thought that Richard Harris had Dumbledore’s calm and cool nature, while still keeping that respect that he is a vastly knowledgeable and powerful wizard, acted out to near perfection. Michael Gambon on the other hand is more high strung, which completely changes the visualizations and descriptions of Dumbledore’s character from the books. I may be one of few people that feel this way, and it’s not really a humongous, “this movie sucks,” kind of deal, but it still has its way of bugging me as I watched the movie. Even though Michael Gambon’s performance has kind of irked me, Brendan Gleeson as Alastor “Mad Eye” Moody kind of compensated for Gambon’s higher strung character in the Goblet of Fire. My own visualizations about the way Mad Eye Moody looked from the books were a little bit different than what was in the movie. I thought that he’d look a little bit darker, but other than that I thought they brought the character to life really well. The Goblet of Fire had a lot more humor than the past three movies have had, including the scene where Mad Eye makes a fool of Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton), which is always a pleasure to see/read. The way Mad Eye’s magical mechanical eye always moved made me laugh so many times, and in the theater I was at I must have been the only one that found the eye comical.

Overall, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire isn’t a perfect translation from the book, but with the time restraints that Mike Newell had to work with I don’t think that the things that were cut and changed around a bit were big enough to make it a failure. I’m in the middle on whether or not Mike Newell should have actually split this movie up into a two-part film in order to retain the content in the book’s 1000 plus pages. If he had, there would have been more time to translate more of the book to the screen, and fewer things could have been cut and changed around. But also, I had to wait long enough to see the Goblet of Fire as it was, and I wouldn’t be very happy to have had to wait another few months for the second part to come out. He did ok though, and now for the wait until Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, where the darker times really await Harry.