A Warner Bros. release of a Heyday Films production.

Produced by David Heyman. Executive producers, David Barron, Tanya Seghatchian. Co-producer, Peter MacDonald.
Directed by Mike Newell.

Screenplay, Steve Kloves, based on the novel by J.K. Rowling.

Harry Potter - Daniel Radcliffe
Ron Weasley - Rupert Grint
Hermione Granger - Emma Watson
Rubeus Hagrid - Robbie Coltran
Lord Voldemort - Ralph Fiennes
Albus Dumbledore - Michael Gambon
Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody - Brendan Gleeson
Lucius Malfoy - Jason Isaacs
Sirius Black - Gary Oldman
Rita Skeeter - Miranda Richardson
Severus Snape - Alan Rickman
Minerva McGonagall - Maggie Smith

Rating: PG-13

Column rating:

√         Must See

Children’s Movie?  See without them, then decide.

Those under 10 may need to wait until they are adolescents

Harry Potter, The Goblet Of Fire is a fairly good adaptation of J. K. Rowling’ s fourth book.  Her books, with their myriad characters, are fostering a following of international significance.  In its first 10 days in theatres, the movie’s box office numbers are astonishing.  Goblet is releasing in 19 foreign markets.  The initial stages of release are setting records in their respective countries.

Unlike the film adaptation, Rowling’s “The Goblet of Fire” is far more substantial, at 700+ pages, and the reading of it is worthwhile for confused movie goers. The action survived to the movie; what did not were the characterizations and clarifications of issues.  Of necessity, filmic adaptations of books are annotated heavily to force a fit with the two hour movie format perceived by studios as appropriate for children and all other viewers with short attention spans. With Goblet Of Fire, much more is lost to the ‘action’ than in the first three adaptations.

Readers and movie viewers have gotten to know Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry as a fascinating training environment.  The magnificent castle is set at the edge of a magical lake, nestled in a magical forest full of magical denizens.  Who wouldn’t want to learn anything in this deliriously wild setting.  Originally, Potter came to school as a wide-eyed boy of ten, with a bit of baggage…an evil villain wizard died trying to kill him as a baby, as he was murdering Harry’s parents.  Referred to in polite company as You-Know-Who, the Dark Lord Voldemort was a nasty piece of work, and is apparently trying to come back from some sort of wizard’s limbo.  Harry, a newly minted student of the Gryffendor House, was a kid wizard, fighting scary stuff, increasingly more dangerous in successive years as his nemesis, Voldemort triumphs over death, little by little becoming more of a threat to Harry, and the whole wizard world. 

In this fourth story, Harry is now a teenage wizard with a few years of education and experience, fighting pretty horrific villains and monsters.  Definitely no longer kid’s fare.  The WB opted for the action, going for teen viewers worldwide.  Dramatic action abounds, with sinister, more ominous sets and wildly dangerous experiences.  The filmic story is heavy on grit, avoiding a good deal of Rowling’s interpersonal relationship issues.  Generally accepted as more mature, and mainstream, believe it or not, Goblet Of Fire takes Harry to a PG-13 rating with its darker themes.  Gone are the indulgences of character exposition…of the general student population, quirky Wizard professors, or, actually, most of Rowling’s secondary characters.  Day to day student classroom and homework activities are pre-empted by the amped-up wizardly practicum, the constantly relocating lab a test of wits, skill and courage. 

Dominating the screenplay is the Tri-Wizard Tournament, a competition turned treacherous, not only for Harry, a lowly Fourth Year, but for the other three Seventh Year student champions, as well.  Hosting two visiting contingents of students from wizardry schools in Europe, Hogwart’s is brimming with ‘new blood’ and its associated rivalries and friendships. 

At the beginning of the year, headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, addresses the guests and the entire Hogwart’s student population in the castle’s splendid great hall, stipulating that only Seventh Year and older students can put their name in the Goblet for consideration as a competitor.  At the appointed time, the fiery Goblet spews out three burning, fire gilded slips of paper with the names of each contender to represent their respective schools.  Then an unprecedented fourth slip flitted out of the Goblet Of Fire, swirled into the headmaster Dumbledore’s hands, and whipped up a school-wide controversy.  Fourth Year students have never been eligible to enter these competitions.  The Seventh Year students that the Goblet selected, one from each school, were to face challenges suitable to their education level.  This tournament would be different.  Harry was too young.  Regardless, the Goblet had chosen, for the first time ever, a fourth champion…under-aged…in addition to his school’s first champion.  Everyone wants to know why had this happened?  How?

In a CGI induced fugue, the viewer must hold onto their seats as the four contenders separately enter an arena for a prize, while evading a fresh dragon each.  Having excelled repeatedly at Quidditch, Harry uses those skills to elude his particularly nasty fire-breather.  The second challenge, later in the Autumn, found everyone at the lake’s docks, cheering on their four champions as they take to the murky depths, populated with mermaid-people, who are not as friendly as the students might have hoped.

Eclipsing these Tri-Wizard challenges, impossible as it might seem, is the angst-loaded arrangements, through which the students struggle, to be assured of a date for the Winter Yule Ball.  Confronting hormonally induced torment is all too familiar and about as un-magical as it can get. The book definitely helps with continuity. Our young wizards are more daring, quarrelsome and bewildered than we might prefer.  By the time everyone is matched up, dressed up and anxious as Quidditch players in their first game, the Yule Ball is anti-climactic.  And how Rowling agreed to a Rave-like concert suddenly breaking out after the waltzes is anyone’s guess.  Cho Chang’s character is highly regarded in our ‘Muggle’ world of China, however brief her cameos.  And it is a wonderful moment for any young girl to behold, when their role model, Hermione, in a breathtaking transformation to young womanhood, makes her grand entrance.  The Yule Ball is the only bit of ‘downtime’ in the script.

At the end of this nearly impossible Fourth year, two semesters of schooling completed, two challenges successfully met, Harry must not only meet the third and final Tournament challenge, as the other three champions must—he most certainly faces an additional, more deadly challenge—Harry did not put his name in the Goblet.  Who did, and why?  He has been dreaming all year, his scar burning in pain, of his nemesis, the renascent Voldemort, Dark Lord…and his parents’ murderer.  Harry has had three run-ins with You-Know-Who, with each succeeding book, and must surely encounter, yet again, this horrific Voldemort, growing in strength, assisted by his followers, the Death Eater—and fiercely determined to eliminate Harry from his path back to power.   Will they meet again in battle?  Where?  And when?  How can Harry possibly overcome these increasingly ferocious attacks?

So goes the fourth Harry Potter movie, The Goblet Of Fire.  This preferential treatment of the so-called action, with dread and doom, without some relief in the mundane, may grind away at some viewers.  Ah well…there is always the valuable DVD library.  We can play Sorcerer’s Stone or Chamber of Secrets whenever a wistful mood crops up, for less complicated times, in our favorite new fantasy world beyond King’s Cross Train Station Platform 9¾.