It’s already been out for a while, and I’ve just got round to seeing it, but was it worth the effort?
That really depends on how you view the screen adaptation. Making a movie of a book is always tricky, especially one as popular as Harry Potter, which has such a fanatical following. Truly successful, and faithful, book to film adaptations could probably be counted on the fingers of a butcher’s hand, but these views are mostly subjective anyway. Good literature is very hard to make into a film because it is more about the use of language, whereas simpler books can make great movies. Agatha Christie stories immediately spring to mind. When it comes to fantasy and science fiction it is not always so easy, although CG special effects have made them a lot closer to the writer’s imagination and therefore more believable.
One of the biggest problems with the latest Harry Potter instalment, at least for the screenwriter, was deciding what to keep and what to jettison from the 600+ page book. When you consider that the audiobook runs to nearly 21 hours, chopping the story down to a length that not only makes it profitable for the studio (always a major concern), but also is able to maintain the attention of sugar-fuelled kid,s must have been a Herculean task. I know all I heard after the film was, “They missed out this bit. They missed out that bit.” I must say that I was doing the same for the first fifteen minutes as they reduced the first ten chapters to what could best be described as edited highlights. Whole characters and vital plot devices simply disappeared, and while the movie was well shot of the play-by-play description of the Quidditch World Cup, I was intrigued as to how they were going to get around the missing plot points.
Part of the problem does stem from the fact that Ms Rowling has been writing these huge tomes, often filled with superfluous detail, and I can’t help feeling that because of her success her editors are reluctant to tell her to cut stuff that a less popular writer would not get away with. Although the recent three episodes have been almost tediously too long (I have yet to tackle the sixth volume and may just take the easy, audiobook, way out) they are excellently written, and the planning that has gone into the storytelling cannot be faulted. Small details mentioned in one book end up having a much larger significance in subsequent episodes. But this isn’t a review of the books. In fact, if you haven’t read the books the chances are you are not likely to have much interest in the film, and I am not about to try and give a synopsis of the film’s story.
Given that huge tracts of the story have been excised, the film still works, as long as you forget everything you know about the book. Unfortunately, as with any ‘franchised’ story, not knowing the back story can mean not only missing some of the nuances, but also not understanding who’s who or what’s what. That is why Joss Whedon did such an admirable job on Serenity, not requiring the viewer to have seen Firefly beforehand. The fact that hardly anyone saw Serenity is another matter.
The Goblet of Fire is probably the best of the Harry Potter films to date. Mike Newell’s direction was perfect for this episode, and while it was not as ‘dark’ as Alfonso Cuaron’s Prisoner of Azkaban, it did capture well the mood of the students’ adolescent angst, it’s just a pity the junior actors are still not fully up to the task of portraying them convincingly. Despite having worked with the cream of British acting talent, they don’t seem to have imbibed much of the subtleties of the craft. Even though the story is about Potter and his cohorts it is disappointing to see these great adult actors in supporting roles. When the likes of Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon, Ralph Fiennes and David Tennant (briefly), are on screen you feel the depth of the drama and get drawn into it, it’s just when those pesky kids arrive that it starts to slip. Luckily, when Harry (Radcliffe) is on screen there are usually plenty of special effects happening, which is a useful distraction.
Overall, the film is entertaining, and there are some powerful emotional moments, from the adult actors, unfortunately most of the book’s humour was lost in translation to screen, although there are still one or two laughs, again courtesy of the adults. Fans of the book will enjoy it, even if they gripe about the aforementioned cuts, and any parents obliged to watch it (it is rated 12A) won’t be bored. I would advise anyone who hasn’t read the book, to do so after seeing the film, because the visuals and characterisations of the school and its staff are spot on and will make the reading that much more enriched. Although I love films, when it comes to Harry Potter I would rather opt for Stephen Fry’s reading any day.
Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire is still on general release.