O Cedric!

All right kids, here it is, the moment you've all been waiting for: My review of HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE. Before you proceed, I'm going to warn you that there will only be spoilers if you haven't read the book.

And I KNOW all of you have read the book.

All right. Well, first of all, Goblet of Fire is a massive book, and they had to cut out huge gaping swaths of the story to make it fit into two hours and forty minutes. (which becomes three hours here in the UK-advertising before films is an art here) I am fine with that, but I completely disagree with the bits they chose to cut out! Why introduce a character or a sitation and then not develop it? I'm thinking of Rita Skeeter here who comes on and then suddenly is not important. Not to mention the poor Champions who are introduced with much fanfare--and then have about six lines between the three of them. Brendan Gleeson as Mad-Eye Moody was genius, especially since he was actually playing another character. David Tennant as Barty Crouch Jr. was a little weird, not how I pictured him. And I was very, VERY disappointed that the only appearance of Sirius Black was a head in a fire--again, why introduce someone if you're not going to carry on with it?

All right, well, bits I liked. First of all, Ralph Fiennes as You-Know-Who...OMG. I bow to thee, Dark Lord! SO gorgeous. SO perfect. I knew he was a great actor, but when you're dealing with a character whose motivation is "pure evil" it takes a great actor to pull it off. There was a moment where YKW accuses Lucius Malfoy of betraying him and I actually had to go outside and have a cigarette. Ralph Fiennes and Jason Isaacs in the same scene. You could see the film scorching around the edges. I was happy to hear some of the dialogue from the book: "Why do they always travel in packs?" "Come Harry, the niceties must be observed." When you're enough of a geek you have passages memorised, you feel vindicated someone else noticed. The humor is better--this movie certainly is more British (don't ask me how, it just is) and the Weasley twins are funnier than the last movie. Draco, however, is still a whiny little...oh, that something I don't like weasling in here...but for someone who has a VERY SERIOUS TASK in book 6, I was expecting him to grow up a bit more. I think my Pensieve was a better design, aren't the Weird Sisters female? and try saying "ferret sporran" without laughing.

And then, of course, when Harry comes out of the maze, I cried. I really, I don't know if it was because I was tired, or because the movie just chucked it at you, but I cried so hard. That moment was perfectly played. (Daniel Radcliffe, I'm relieved to say, produced actual tears this time) The whole ending was so emotional and I just left the theater aching. I don't know if I can say it's a "good" movie, but it's certainly interesting. Some interesting choices. Yes, interesting is a good word. There better be a whole box of deleted scenes however, because if this is the sum total of three years of work, I'm gonna be pissed. I'm going to see it again on the IMAX screen, so I'll let you know if bigger makes it better.