‘Harry Potter - Goblet of fire’ comes under fire
Caught “Harry Potter : Goblet of Fire” earlier this evening, right after a strenuous 3 hours of non stop salsa practice that has pretty much being the norm for me over the last 2 weeks.
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Well, as a fan of the Harry Potter series, yesh, I have somehow managed to read all 6 books in a span of 1 month sometime this year and quite coincidentally, the book that started me going was “Goblet of Fire” and thus I was pretty much looking forward to the movie version as I wanted to see how the story is being brought to the big screen this time round.
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Alas, to my great disappointment, the movie was a total let down, a mere touch and go film that did absolutely no justice to the book. If it was anything, the movie was probably the tip of the iceberg as compared to the book in terms of depth, character development and the general development of the greater story.
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I am a weird follower of the Harry Potter series. I started off with the movies without even reading the book and back then, which was a good 5 to 6 years back, I simply dismissed the notion that a ‘children’ book would be of any good and was quite satisfied with the reasoning that it is probably due to sheer marketing gimmick that the book was such a best seller. Well, the first 2 installment of the Harry Potter series movies were pretty good I must say and now having read the 2 books as well, I would say that due justice was been done and there was definitely much character and plot development as well as depth in the first 2 movies. I shall refrain from commenting on the “Prisoner of Azarkhban” as I did not watch that movie, though I would pretty much love to do so if some kind soul is willing to lend me his vcd/dvd as I have absolutely no intention to purchase them now until the whole 7 movies have been released in a collectible version. Enough of digression.
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Granted that “Goblet of fire” was definitely much thicker in volume as compared to the earlier 3 books and its definitely no fun doing an executive summary of the book in the form of a movie, however, this is not a complete mitigation. If this is an indication of how things are gonna be run in the future, I am sad to say that the next 2 installments of the Harry Potter series – “Order of the Phoenix” & “The Half Blood Prince” are definitely gonna turn out to be even worse than “Goblet of fire” as they are definitely at least 20 – 30% thicker in volume and if the same approach is to be adopted to squeeze the so called “exciting” aspects and crowd wowing scenes of the book into a movie version, I would certainly have no wish to watch them..
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Besides the lack of character and plot development as well as depth, I am pretty sure that the average audience especially the muggers (in this case, those who have not read any Harry potter books before) would agree with me that the whole show is quite lousily connected. Everything just seemed to be in a mad rush and things just keep on happening as if the Tri Wizard Tournament took place in about a week. There was no adventure this time round, pretty much a bullet train ride from start to end that leave those who have not read the book feeling pretty much lost and have absolutely no idea what the f*** was going on (pardon my language) and for those who have read the book, certainly would find the movie grossly inadequate.
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The deepening of the friendship between the trio takes to a higher level while they risk everything to assist Harry in completing his task, the normal problem facing teenages (envy, puppy love, jealousy, angst), the relationship building between Harry Potter and his God Father Sirius, the dark plot behind the dark lord’s revival, the snipes and background of the war fought with the death eaters and the severity of the situation back then, the background on the various death eaters characters, the entire school term in which Hogwarts, how Harry struggled and pains to learn the various spell, the difficulty of the Tri-wizard Tournament was completely left out. In fact, the list is pretty much unexhaustive and these that I have listed out are just some of the notable points that I can still recall despite having read the book about 3 months back.
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Character casting is another area of contention. Besides the correct casting of the main trio and some of the Hogwarts long standing teachers, and oh ya, Cedric Diggory, the rest are pretty much crap. Let’s just touch on a few, Dumbledore. Yeah, sadly the old dumbledore has gone back to his hometown to sell salted duck eggs, but I’am pretty sure Hollywood has no lack of actors that could fill his post. The new Dumbledore seriously does not look wise, experienced, mature, powerful, awe inspiring, warm, fatherly or grandfatherly, doesn’t have a sense of presence around him and in short, has nothing to show as a great wizard of his time. His performance couple with his look really make him more like a silly old man, who somehow seems to be moving in a bounce around manner and not the steadfast type of those that would be expected of his age. For those that have read the book and watched the first few movies would definitely agree with me that this guy’s a fluke. In fact, I even thought that he look like the Hong Kong comedian ‘Xu guan jie’ at one of the scene when his glasses are off. Everything just don’t seem quite right with him around. His presence in each of the scene just doesn’t give off the reassuring feeling that a true Dumbledore would probably instill in everyone. (thus explaining at the devastating effect when Dumbledore….oops…shouldn’t say that much on this ah) Well, in short, absolutely lousy casting on this one.
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Cho Chang. Well, I guess Westerners have a weird idea of what constitute a really really beautiful and eye turner Asian lady as being described in the story. We seriously have plenty in the region and what they have chosen is certainly not up to the standard. Well, Harry is seriously better off choosing Hermoine instead if Cho Chang looks like this.
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Fluer Decloare, think I didn’t get her name quite right and can’t be bothered at 3 am in the morning to check with the books, but well, not too bad, but like Cho, seriously, this super duper eye turner supposedly French lady would need to do better.
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Let’s try one question. After watching the movie, for those who have not read the book, do you know whom Harry found dead in the forest? Probably not. I don’t supposed the movie did much explaining who the heck that guy was. For those who answered Barty Couch, good for you, great observation. However, do you know what’s the impact of his death, the politics behind the Ministry, the subsequent repercussions and consequences. This is just one example of a totally not develop plot. The producer might have solve the problem this time round by having a really sumarised executive summary, but I bet he’s gonna have problem in the future as all these things have not been careful explain in a delicate manner and its just gonna snowball.
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Well, enough said. Anyway, my grouses probably wouldn’t get anywhere except to discourage people from watching the movies and turning to the book instead, which I seriously implore you to do so. It is really a great book, easy to read and interesting story. I certainly did not regret buying all 3 books at one shot back then. Well, happy reading and less watching people!
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Oh ya, for those hardcore Harry Potter fans, if you really like the movies, just ignore my comments ah. I certainly don’t wish to have people coming up to me and shouting abacadabra, imperius or crucitius at my face. 
