It’s a weekend of movies! Last night we saw Serenity at the dollar theater. (The dollar theater is actually $1.50. False advertising!) Then this afternoon we braved the crowds of kiddies and tweens to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. A few short thoughts…
+ Snape is woefully underused. I love Snape. I love how Alan Rickman plays him. I want more Snape. The few moments where he has a role, however, are fabulous.
+ Rupert Grint (Ron) is starting to look older than his character. The other two are still ok, but Ron looked older than 14.
+ Fleur wasn’t quite how I pictured her. She was smart and beautiful, but she didn’t…flounce…enough. She needed more flounce. More ooh la la.
+ The movie also needed more CRAZY GARY OLDMAN! Poor Sirius Black, limited to just a scene in the fire. I know he’s not in the book much. Still sad though. I love Sirius.
+ I’m going to start walking around sighing like the girls from Beauxbatons (when they enter the school). It looks like fun.
+ While the boys are all getting, well, uglier or at least more awkward-looking, Hermione is turning into a total babe.
+ I like how Hogwarts keeps on randomly growing, and having new buildings added. There was some sort of aqueduct now. And the owl house was different. And some waterfall. Wherever Hogwarts supposedly is, it’s beautiful and I want to live there.
+ My biggest complaint about the movie is something that, sadly, probably won’t improve in the remaining films — it’s that there is just too much story to cram into a 2.5 hour movie. Everything feels rushed. Everything happens so fast. The movie jumps from plot point to plot point with little time to think.
+ The exception to the rush, thankfully, is the final scene. Voldemort (and Ralph Fiennes) is suitably creepy, and the pace slows down enough that you truly get to enjoy (though “enjoy” is probably the wrong word) the graveyard showdown.
All of your critique is vs. the book. The movie is an entirely different art form than the book. If someone made a painting of Potter, would you say “but it didn’t have Sirius in it enough.” What did you think of the film?
What did I think of the film? See above. ;p
I took my kids to see the movie this weekend. Your comments look spot on. The only detail that bugged me was how the kids walked around in school uniform with top button undone. Based on my boarding school experience, that was a serious no-no.
Regarding Snape, I think that is why I liked the first movie so much. There was a lot more of Snape. He seemed to have been relegated to a very minor role in this movie.
I wonder how the viewer who did not read the book liked to movie. There were a lot of scenes in the movie that assumes you know the back ground story behind it.
I agree with you 100% on Snape and Sirius Black. That mere 5 minute scene with Sirius was cruel torture for Sirius Black/Gary Oldman fans. 🙂
Until the end credits, I was convinced that Madame Maxine was being played by Allison Janney from the West Wing. oops.
And do you think that if Wormtail had put an extra drop of Harry’s blood into the cauldron, then Voldemort would have gotten a full nose?
🙂