Goblet of Fire review, by Gregory: Continued...
What's in it for adults? The professors are, as usual, wonderful, their banter and bickering every bit as delightful as that
of the kids, if not more so. It's a shame that the full gist of their interdependence is not revealed with the subtlety found
in the book, but frankly nothing is. As this limited script has it, in the hands of these marvellous performers, it's hard to
imagine a more pungent overall interpretation.
For one, I liked Michael Gambon as Headmaster Albus Dumbledore a lot more in Goblet of Fire than in the previous film.
Richard Harris was the superior choice for the role, however, being dead, he is now well replaced by Gambon, who
brings a gravitational center to the sadness and confusion of the proceedings. There's also a terrific light-heartedness to
the character in the book, which is not so much present in the movie, however bringing forth the old wizard's increasing
worry and vulnerability and escalating age proves to be Gambon's strong suit, and he's genuinely riveting (and a bit
scary, when he turns "SILENCE!" into a booming, four-syllable exclamation). Make no mistake, the character as drawn
is basically Yoda in a grey beard (with an off-screen brother who molests goats), but in a way he's better: Whereas Yoda
in the Star Wars prequels is only about scowling and kicking ass, one gets the impression that Dumbledore, while quite
mighty in his abilities, is at times genuinely perplexed and fearful, until he is called to action, at which point (in the
manner of most scared people) he becomes mean. (Go figure that a human can outshine a CG puppet. Also intriguing
that, after all these years, Warner Bros. finally has its own series worthy of Lucas' -- on which they passed.) The layers
of Gambon's performance are exceptional, and well rival (if not surpass) those of Ian McKellen as Gandalf (who went
out of his way in interviews to mock Harris as Dumbledore; cannot even beardie-weirdie Wizards negotiate a peaceful
co-existence?)
As Professor Minerva McGonagall, Maggie Smith is once again exemplary, however her performance does not seem to
vary from film to film. Here she is typically pert and charming, and an extra scene has been written for her, in which she
instructs the students of Hogwarts (particularly the delightfully uncomfortable Ron) in ballroom dancing, in preparation
for the movie's centerpiece, the lavishly-presented Yule Ball. The preliminary scene features lovely characterisation and is
by far my favourite addition to the original narrative. It's quite funny, too.
While we're on that topic, there are a few additions from screenwriter Steve Kloves which prove mainly shrug-worthy.
In Dumbledore's office, for instance, why is there a bowl full of "licorice snap" which is actually a mildly dangerous
pileup of what appear to be large, aggressive, carnivorous flying tadpoles? Furthermore, why on Earth would
Dumbledore offer Harry such a "snack" (and why would animators want to bother with it)? Furthermore again, what are
we supposed to think when, in the first gathering in the Great Hall, the ultimate older brother (and, officially, Professor of
Care of Magical Creatures) Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane, please quit smoking and live longer) accidentally sticks his fork into
the hand of diminutive (and now bizarrely slicked, toupéed and moustachioed) Professor Flitwick (Warwick Davis,
Fantasy Hero Incarnate)? Okay, this affords Davis an actual line of dialogue ("You idiot!"), but is this supposed to be
funny? It simply looks painful. Likewise rotten little Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton) being transformed into a ferret and
slammed about: Exactly why does he have to be shoved down the trousers of Slytherin scumbag Crabbe (or was it
Goyle? -- I never can tell them apart)? Is this merely further exploration of adolescent sexual turmoil?
To his credit, however, Kloves handily compresses the book's epistolary subplot -- a series of letters between Harry and
his godfather (and Wizard-on-the-lam) Sirius Black (Gary Oldman) -- with just a couple of correspondences, one of
which concludes on a nice little invented chuckle with Harry suffering acute pain. So although fixing something that
really ain't broke is never a good idea, the riffs ain't all bad. (Why don't they tie the letters to the owls' legs like in the
book, though?)
Oh, and then there's this bit, which is not an invention: Why on Earth does Sirius utter the line, "Hogwarts is no longer
safe!"? Erm...Hogwarts was ever safe? Giant killer spiders and giant killer snakes and evil professors and a ripoff of
Cerberus and a mountain troll and a werewolf and lethal potions and those soul-sucking Dementor thingies (which should
be present here in a pivotal flashback and climactic scene and, alas, aren't) -- not to mention that most ordinary people
would not survive the constantly-shifting tiers of the grand staircase. "Safe"? That really is a weird thing to say, and yet
the line is not delivered with any irony.
Speaking of weird things to say, some of the adapted dialogue raises an eyebrow: Why does Wormtongue...er...
Wormtail (Timothy Spall) change the wording (albeit slightly) of his malevolent spell in the boneyard? Why does
Dumbledore not make it a point to tell the students about the murder? Why is Dumbledore's What Is Right/What Is Easy
pep-talk lifted from the context of the Great Hall and used on Harry alone? I get the feeling that Kloves -- like some
Dumb-asses Who Must Not Be Named -- thinks he knows the material better than the person who wrote it.
Props to Kloves, though, for whittling down Voldemort's five hundred pages of soliloquy. To think of having to watch
Fiennes sputtering though all of that. Jesus. Nobody's karma is that bad.
In terms of the other adult performers, I wish I could call it a reunion of the "Peter's Friends mafia" (Oh, to join that
club!), but, alas, some wonderful scenes with Divination Professor Trelawney (Emma Thompson, not in this movie)
have been cut. Professor Sprout (Miriam Margolyes), despite being the Headmistress of Hufflepuff House, also never
shows up. Unfortunate.
Since this movie really is an exercise in narrative compression, however, we still do pretty well, Professor-wise.
Although the Goth-chick fave Potions Professor Severus Snape (Alan Rickman) doesn't get to do quite as much here as
he does in the book, he still makes out fairly well for screen-time (it's all about that wig and scowl and growl) and he
gets to harangue Harry and Ron most amusingly (his is the only comic timing rivalling Grint's).
(Come to think of it, I'm starting to think that Grint is the real break-out star of this franchise. I hope he never turns to
drugs. Kid, ask Oldman about it, then Just Say No.)
The visiting professors have limited screen-time, but wicked Karkaroff of Durmstrang (Pedja Bjelac, who looks, in the
movie not the book, like an evil twin of a couple of distant friends of mine, who both have much nicer teeth) and
Madame Maxime of Beauxbatons [Frances de la Tour, also not matching the book's description, who delivers an
awesome typo in the press-notes by defining her character as "chic and gentile" (sic)] leave strong impressions indeed;
Karkaroff with his shadowy dealings and Maxime contending with her denial that she's at least part-giant, plus the natural
attraction this presents for Hagrid (who puts glistening goop in his hair for her, but probably should have gone even
goonier, a la the book).
We get a nice addition, too, with the ever-welcome Miranda Richardson (remember her from that Kate Bush video, The
Line, the Cross & the Curve?) as Rita Skeeter, a mud-slinging journalist whose creatively laid-out columns in The Daily
Prophet wreak, well, mild annoyance in the life of Harry and his friends. Richardson is a hoot and a half, but once again
-- egad! -- why not take it over the top as in the book? Why doesn't she have three gold teeth? Why can't she transform
into a beetle? Why not supply the terrific subplot in which she outs Hagrid as a half-giant (as if!), thereby wreaking real
havoc at Hogwarts, rather than being merely another tabloid hack? (Reminds me of something a rabid coworker once
said to me: "If you can't be famous, be infamous." A Loser's Creed if ever there was one.) There's so much opportunity
to skewer the press here, but instead Skeeter is only allowed by the script to be daft and kind of pushy. Nice quill,
though; pretty cool.
And this brings us to the project's most impressive new character -- not ol' Moldyshorts, who is indeed creepy but
shows up about a couple of days after the movie starts -- but rather Alastor Moody (whose first name is peculiarly
announced by the children in the movie, although it takes them a long time to learn it in the book), a.k.a. Mad-Eye
Moody, an Auror who has a knack for sniffing out evil and neutralizing it. This part is played by Brendan Gleeson (The
General, though he requires no introduction) with more gusto than all the other professors combined, and his energy and
explosion of macho mystique kick the movie into high gear every time he's onscreen. However...
While I am suitably impressed with Gleeson's portrayal of Mad-Eye Moody, it was to me as if he were playing an entirely
different character than the one in the book. I wanted someone darkly sinister, brash in an even more insane way,
pointier, disturbing in an almost inhuman fashion -- but Gleeson instead gives us some bizarre rendition of what are
perhaps vestigial nightmares from traditional British (or, in his case, Irish) schoolboy days. They got the look a bit
wrong, too: Although Gleeson does carry some prosthetic scars, his face (as described) should be all scar tissue, much
of his nose should be missing, and his "mad" eye should be truly weird and even frightening, not simply the cute
Halloween effect we're given (reminds me of the Hobbits being too human-looking in Lord of the Rings). Worst of all in
terms of costume-design, they got his fake leg wrong! Morons, MOODY HAS A THUDDING WOODEN LEG, NOT A
CRAZY STAINLESS STEEL CONTRAPTION! Tim Burton has been guilty of this sort of thing more than once,
especially with the horribly miscast Jack Nicholson as The Joker in Batman, and the annoyingly prosthetic-free Johnny
Depp in Sleepy Hollow: WHY DO SOMETHING WRONG WHEN YOU CAN DO IT RIGHT? Moody here is good, but
wrong, alas. Fortunately, Gleeson throws so much explosive energy into the mishandling that he creates a whole new
interpretation, which, luckily, manages to foot the bill. He's not the Moody I wanted, but he's awesome anyway.
It says in the press notes that it took a TEAM of workers a WEEK to distress his overcoat. That is worth thinking about,
however you please.
to PAGE THREE (Review continues...)
What's in it for adults? The professors are, as usual, wonderful, their banter and bickering every bit as delightful as that
of the kids, if not more so. It's a shame that the full gist of their interdependence is not revealed with the subtlety found
in the book, but frankly nothing is. As this limited script has it, in the hands of these marvellous performers, it's hard to
imagine a more pungent overall interpretation.
For one, I liked Michael Gambon as Headmaster Albus Dumbledore a lot more in Goblet of Fire than in the previous film.
Richard Harris was the superior choice for the role, however, being dead, he is now well replaced by Gambon, who
brings a gravitational center to the sadness and confusion of the proceedings. There's also a terrific light-heartedness to
the character in the book, which is not so much present in the movie, however bringing forth the old wizard's increasing
worry and vulnerability and escalating age proves to be Gambon's strong suit, and he's genuinely riveting (and a bit
scary, when he turns "SILENCE!" into a booming, four-syllable exclamation). Make no mistake, the character as drawn
is basically Yoda in a grey beard (with an off-screen brother who molests goats), but in a way he's better: Whereas Yoda
in the Star Wars prequels is only about scowling and kicking ass, one gets the impression that Dumbledore, while quite
mighty in his abilities, is at times genuinely perplexed and fearful, until he is called to action, at which point (in the
manner of most scared people) he becomes mean. (Go figure that a human can outshine a CG puppet. Also intriguing
that, after all these years, Warner Bros. finally has its own series worthy of Lucas' -- on which they passed.) The layers
of Gambon's performance are exceptional, and well rival (if not surpass) those of Ian McKellen as Gandalf (who went
out of his way in interviews to mock Harris as Dumbledore; cannot even beardie-weirdie Wizards negotiate a peaceful
co-existence?)
As Professor Minerva McGonagall, Maggie Smith is once again exemplary, however her performance does not seem to
vary from film to film. Here she is typically pert and charming, and an extra scene has been written for her, in which she
instructs the students of Hogwarts (particularly the delightfully uncomfortable Ron) in ballroom dancing, in preparation
for the movie's centerpiece, the lavishly-presented Yule Ball. The preliminary scene features lovely characterisation and is
by far my favourite addition to the original narrative. It's quite funny, too.
While we're on that topic, there are a few additions from screenwriter Steve Kloves which prove mainly shrug-worthy.
In Dumbledore's office, for instance, why is there a bowl full of "licorice snap" which is actually a mildly dangerous
pileup of what appear to be large, aggressive, carnivorous flying tadpoles? Furthermore, why on Earth would
Dumbledore offer Harry such a "snack" (and why would animators want to bother with it)? Furthermore again, what are
we supposed to think when, in the first gathering in the Great Hall, the ultimate older brother (and, officially, Professor of
Care of Magical Creatures) Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane, please quit smoking and live longer) accidentally sticks his fork into
the hand of diminutive (and now bizarrely slicked, toupéed and moustachioed) Professor Flitwick (Warwick Davis,
Fantasy Hero Incarnate)? Okay, this affords Davis an actual line of dialogue ("You idiot!"), but is this supposed to be
funny? It simply looks painful. Likewise rotten little Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton) being transformed into a ferret and
slammed about: Exactly why does he have to be shoved down the trousers of Slytherin scumbag Crabbe (or was it
Goyle? -- I never can tell them apart)? Is this merely further exploration of adolescent sexual turmoil?
To his credit, however, Kloves handily compresses the book's epistolary subplot -- a series of letters between Harry and
his godfather (and Wizard-on-the-lam) Sirius Black (Gary Oldman) -- with just a couple of correspondences, one of
which concludes on a nice little invented chuckle with Harry suffering acute pain. So although fixing something that
really ain't broke is never a good idea, the riffs ain't all bad. (Why don't they tie the letters to the owls' legs like in the
book, though?)
Oh, and then there's this bit, which is not an invention: Why on Earth does Sirius utter the line, "Hogwarts is no longer
safe!"? Erm...Hogwarts was ever safe? Giant killer spiders and giant killer snakes and evil professors and a ripoff of
Cerberus and a mountain troll and a werewolf and lethal potions and those soul-sucking Dementor thingies (which should
be present here in a pivotal flashback and climactic scene and, alas, aren't) -- not to mention that most ordinary people
would not survive the constantly-shifting tiers of the grand staircase. "Safe"? That really is a weird thing to say, and yet
the line is not delivered with any irony.
Speaking of weird things to say, some of the adapted dialogue raises an eyebrow: Why does Wormtongue...er...
Wormtail (Timothy Spall) change the wording (albeit slightly) of his malevolent spell in the boneyard? Why does
Dumbledore not make it a point to tell the students about the murder? Why is Dumbledore's What Is Right/What Is Easy
pep-talk lifted from the context of the Great Hall and used on Harry alone? I get the feeling that Kloves -- like some
Dumb-asses Who Must Not Be Named -- thinks he knows the material better than the person who wrote it.
Props to Kloves, though, for whittling down Voldemort's five hundred pages of soliloquy. To think of having to watch
Fiennes sputtering though all of that. Jesus. Nobody's karma is that bad.
In terms of the other adult performers, I wish I could call it a reunion of the "Peter's Friends mafia" (Oh, to join that
club!), but, alas, some wonderful scenes with Divination Professor Trelawney (Emma Thompson, not in this movie)
have been cut. Professor Sprout (Miriam Margolyes), despite being the Headmistress of Hufflepuff House, also never
shows up. Unfortunate.
Since this movie really is an exercise in narrative compression, however, we still do pretty well, Professor-wise.
Although the Goth-chick fave Potions Professor Severus Snape (Alan Rickman) doesn't get to do quite as much here as
he does in the book, he still makes out fairly well for screen-time (it's all about that wig and scowl and growl) and he
gets to harangue Harry and Ron most amusingly (his is the only comic timing rivalling Grint's).
(Come to think of it, I'm starting to think that Grint is the real break-out star of this franchise. I hope he never turns to
drugs. Kid, ask Oldman about it, then Just Say No.)
The visiting professors have limited screen-time, but wicked Karkaroff of Durmstrang (Pedja Bjelac, who looks, in the
movie not the book, like an evil twin of a couple of distant friends of mine, who both have much nicer teeth) and
Madame Maxime of Beauxbatons [Frances de la Tour, also not matching the book's description, who delivers an
awesome typo in the press-notes by defining her character as "chic and gentile" (sic)] leave strong impressions indeed;
Karkaroff with his shadowy dealings and Maxime contending with her denial that she's at least part-giant, plus the natural
attraction this presents for Hagrid (who puts glistening goop in his hair for her, but probably should have gone even
goonier, a la the book).
We get a nice addition, too, with the ever-welcome Miranda Richardson (remember her from that Kate Bush video, The
Line, the Cross & the Curve?) as Rita Skeeter, a mud-slinging journalist whose creatively laid-out columns in The Daily
Prophet wreak, well, mild annoyance in the life of Harry and his friends. Richardson is a hoot and a half, but once again
-- egad! -- why not take it over the top as in the book? Why doesn't she have three gold teeth? Why can't she transform
into a beetle? Why not supply the terrific subplot in which she outs Hagrid as a half-giant (as if!), thereby wreaking real
havoc at Hogwarts, rather than being merely another tabloid hack? (Reminds me of something a rabid coworker once
said to me: "If you can't be famous, be infamous." A Loser's Creed if ever there was one.) There's so much opportunity
to skewer the press here, but instead Skeeter is only allowed by the script to be daft and kind of pushy. Nice quill,
though; pretty cool.
And this brings us to the project's most impressive new character -- not ol' Moldyshorts, who is indeed creepy but
shows up about a couple of days after the movie starts -- but rather Alastor Moody (whose first name is peculiarly
announced by the children in the movie, although it takes them a long time to learn it in the book), a.k.a. Mad-Eye
Moody, an Auror who has a knack for sniffing out evil and neutralizing it. This part is played by Brendan Gleeson (The
General, though he requires no introduction) with more gusto than all the other professors combined, and his energy and
explosion of macho mystique kick the movie into high gear every time he's onscreen. However...
While I am suitably impressed with Gleeson's portrayal of Mad-Eye Moody, it was to me as if he were playing an entirely
different character than the one in the book. I wanted someone darkly sinister, brash in an even more insane way,
pointier, disturbing in an almost inhuman fashion -- but Gleeson instead gives us some bizarre rendition of what are
perhaps vestigial nightmares from traditional British (or, in his case, Irish) schoolboy days. They got the look a bit
wrong, too: Although Gleeson does carry some prosthetic scars, his face (as described) should be all scar tissue, much
of his nose should be missing, and his "mad" eye should be truly weird and even frightening, not simply the cute
Halloween effect we're given (reminds me of the Hobbits being too human-looking in Lord of the Rings). Worst of all in
terms of costume-design, they got his fake leg wrong! Morons, MOODY HAS A THUDDING WOODEN LEG, NOT A
CRAZY STAINLESS STEEL CONTRAPTION! Tim Burton has been guilty of this sort of thing more than once,
especially with the horribly miscast Jack Nicholson as The Joker in Batman, and the annoyingly prosthetic-free Johnny
Depp in Sleepy Hollow: WHY DO SOMETHING WRONG WHEN YOU CAN DO IT RIGHT? Moody here is good, but
wrong, alas. Fortunately, Gleeson throws so much explosive energy into the mishandling that he creates a whole new
interpretation, which, luckily, manages to foot the bill. He's not the Moody I wanted, but he's awesome anyway.
It says in the press notes that it took a TEAM of workers a WEEK to distress his overcoat. That is worth thinking about,
however you please.
to PAGE THREE (Review continues...)
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