owlbeer | Goblet of Fire: Initial Reaction

Disclaimer: I haven’t read GoF in years and I haven’t watched the PoA movie for quite some time.

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Overall, I really enjoyed it. Maybe it was the new movie high but for a while there I thought I might even like it better than PoA, but I’m not quite sure how that view will hold up in the long run.

It did rush things a little but then it had some serious time restraints. I thought they didn’t miss anything that was too crucial and the plot flowed well. It did feel a bit like a series of set pieces, but I thought they did the transitions quite nicely.

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The Good:

The ending was pretty impressive. Ralf Fiennes’ Voldemort was really quite frightening and I thought they handled the ending in general very well. The way Voldemort’s cloak settled around him as he was re-born was a particularly nice moment.

I loved how the celebratory music overlaid Harry showing up with Cedric’s body. That was the moment that nearly got me choked up.

In general I felt for Cedric a lot more in the movie that I can remember feeling in the book.

I generally lean more towards Harry/Hermione than Ron/Hermione, but it’s a very gentle lean because trioshipping is a whole minefield I more often than not chose to ignore. Saying that, I liked the little glimpses we got of the Harry and Hermione friendship. Even if Hermione was nagging a bit, it really did come across how much they felt about each other, even if it never really came across to me as very ‘shippy.

As for Harry and Ron. I thought they handled ‘the split’ pretty well and them making up but after that it did seem to plateau a little bit.

McGonogall and Fred and George could not possibly rock more than they already do.

Neville: Oh, honey. You’re adorable.

Cho: Very cute and … Scottish. Which was interesting, but I thought Katie Leung did fine.

Mad Eye Moody was a lot better than I thought he’d be.

‘Would you like something sweet, dear?’ Hehe. Yes, yes he would.

I loved the flashback scene.

I really can’t say I missed the SPEW plot.

Acting wise, I was pretty impressed. Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman, Miranda Richardson, Jason Isaacs and Ralf Fiennes were all wonderful, but that’s not too surprising really.

Daniel Radcliffe was particularly good near the end. Rupert and Emma were also good; about on the same level as PoA, which is a high level. (And Dan thankfully didn’t have any, ‘He was their friend!’ moments in this movie, which was good. That scene still irks me in PoA.)

I thought Bonnie Wright has improved a lot.

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The Bad:

The start had its issues. The Quidditch World Cup was very … Quidditch-less (and who exactly won?) and I didn’t really like how they completely glossed over what happened with the Death Eaters other than the fact that they actually showed up.

Karkaroff = Rasputin. He looked exactly like I picture Rasputin in my head. Or maybe he looks really like how he was portrayed in that history film we saw which had Patrick Stewart as Lenin. (No, really. It was pretty amusing but Patrick Stewart is great. Oh, look, a tangent.) Anyway, I wasn’t really a big fan.

Barty Crouch Jr annoyed me. A lot. He was overdone and just, eh. I’m trying to not hold it against David Tennant. The ‘hello, father’ bit was particularly painful.

Daniel Radcliffe’s facial expressions while he’s shown watching things and smiling are just amusing. In a bad way

The clues that ‘Moody’ was not the real Mad-Eye Moody were about as subtle as a brick.

I missed Bill, Charlie and Sirius’s appearances. I understood why they went and I’m not incensed or anything but I did miss them.

Also, while on the whole the effects were excellent and head in the fire didn’t quite live up to my expectations.

One more classroom scene might have been nice.

I thought the Lake task went a little too long and was a little boring, but then it’s the least exciting in the book too.

The Maze was a little lame. It was a little scary and looked impressive but all it really did was swallow people in its hedges.

He wrote ‘Sirius Black’ on the letter. *headdesk *

Characters that got hard done by:

Draco – but I can’t say that really bothered me.

Snape – I would have liked to have seen more of him.

Fleur – I’m really not her biggest fan but she came out of that movie looking weak, which she really isn’t. She was probably the most hard done by in my opinion.

Rita Skeeter – She served her purpose and that was it. I loved Miranda Richardson as Rita and I thought she could have been used a little more.

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The Random:

My friend and I were doing a little Cedric/Harry running commentary because it was so there. The same friend also referred to the Beauxbatons hats as ‘boob hats’ because they really did resemble breasts when you looked at them.

I’m not quite sure whether all the clues they left about OotP about ‘letter writing’ and keeping your ‘friends close’ annoyed me or not.

I haven't got around to reading what everyone else thought but I will. Just, not now. I have to be up early as I have a 2-year old's birthday to attend. It promises to be cute.

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Random: The bank rang me in the last 10 minutes of Veronica Mars tonight. Grr.