Monday, May 20, 2013

[Movie] Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire


The Harry Potter series are perhaps the most satisfying ‘books into movies” for me so far; either because J.K. Rowling has written the books very vividly or because she was involved in the movie production. Unlike my first experience of watching this movie, this time I watched the movie right after I’ve finished the book, so I still got quite fresh memory to compare both.

Overall, from castings, story and plot, and setting and costumes, I have only little to complaint. Emma Watson and Rupert Grint are only few of the stars who blend in the characters in the book very well. Maybe my only complaint is for Daniel Radcliffe who plays at Harry Potter. I always think Daniel is much too ‘sweet’ for Harry. The movie setting are also fabulous; the way they made Hogwarts castles as what we’ve always imagined it, is just one of the many thumbs-up settings in this movies. If I have one critic, it’s for the Yule ball. With the girls wearing evening dress like we all wear, it had lost the ‘wizarding’ touch. It’s just weird to see boys in their dress robes dance with girls in their evening dress, it made the party looked like a Muggle’s party.

So now, about story and plot; most of Harry Potter movies’ plot follows the story from books, only here and there they were cut and slightly changed to make it compact for a movie. In this Goblet of Fire, there are little changes of the details; some of them do not alter the sense of the story, but some do. For example in the Triwizard Tournament—at the point when Harry and Cedric met in the middle of the maze and finally decided to go for the cup together. In the book, I remember Harry was the one who was limp because he strained his leg, however in the movie Harry was the one who helped Cedric from the roots which strangled him (I also did not find this one in the book). In the book it’s Cedric who must fight his ego to grab the cup and leave Harry behind, but in the movie it’s Harry who suffered it. Maybe it’s to give credit to the main hero, that he was not selfish.

I must admit that the cinematographer has done a good work here, and so I’m happy to grant 8.5 to 10 stars for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire movie!

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I watched this for Books Into Movies Monthly Meme #4


2 comments:

  1. Ohoo...I just hate this movie (specially this adaptation) and for Goblet of Fire the original story are cut more than half into the movie.
    Ever since watch this adaptation, I just stop watching it until now ...

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    1. I think it's difficult to pick all the scenes from book to a 120 minutes movie, so I think they had done a pretty good job here, considering that most of the main plot follow faithfully the book's.

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