Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
(2005)
(SPOILERS) Significant, ante-upping events occur in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, but
so much of the movie is filler, or prelude, that it would have taken a director
truly worth their salt to make it seem something more than it was. Mike Newell
wasn’t that director. The best you can say about his work is that it’s
serviceable, efficient, and you wouldn’t know his ballpark hitherto resided
mostly in romcoms. He plays with the second unit and the effects department
surprisingly well, never a given in the history of journeymen embarking on
spectacles beyond their ken (see the Bond
movies for much of their history), and as an actor’s director, pulls decent
performances from all concerned. But you’re never in doubt where the joins
between the overarching plot and incidentals lie, making it less successful and
engrossing than its predecessor.
The lion’s share of the movie is concerned with the
Tri-Wizard Tournament, and it really need a dab hand at action to fire up these
sequences, to make them as important and diverting as the main mystery, but at
no point are the magic sports so immersive that you are as invested in them as
you are in He Who Shall Not be Named or whatever is going on with Mad Moody and
his potion.
And there’s another problem. There’s a strong whiff of
recycling. While Rowling spends more time getting to know the characters and
developing their interpersonal issues, the tournament provides easy scores of a
sort we previously saw in Philosopher’s
Stone’s end game. It also borrows from that movie’s “Defence Against the
Dark Arts Teacher is an agent of Voldemort”, which is plain lazy.
Harry: It was you from the beginning!
Having said that, Brendan Gleeson is a winner as MadEye
Moody, even encumbered by a ridiculously cartoonish ocular prop, and – for
those unfamiliar with the source material – whatever is up with him is
effectively sustained. In contrast to Philosopher’s
Stone, the signs of the villain being the villain are effectively
concealed, albeit there are clues for the alert. Even the inevitable exposition
works better, with a switch to David Tennant for enunciating the detail (he’s
the Johnny Depp of Goblet of Fire),
one of two future franchise bearers on the cusp of stardom. Tennant had already
played his first scene as the Doctor when Goblet
of Fire came out, but this and the more recent Jessica Jones show off a largely untapped knack for villainy.
Robert Pattison was still a few years off from Twilight, and the straight good guy role
of Cedric Diggory is accordingly less interesting than Tennant’s Barty Crouch
Jr. Indeed, Pattison’s had to actively fight against the pigeonhole of poster
boy looks since Edward Cullen characterised him as bland and one note
(unfairly, since he’s a more than decent actor). Cedric’s most notable aspect is
that he surprisingly turns out to be as honest, honourable and well-intentioned
as Harry, and then gets killed off. Credit
to Rowling, this is a great moment, particularly the casualness of the “Kill the spare” instruction.
I’m less keen on the Harry’s parents ex machina (or
ex-Voldemort’s wand), which probably seemed less without precedent in the novel
but is rather too convenient. And, such an extended build up, Newell maybe
fails to make Voldemort quite as intimidating or fearsome as he might have
done. The design is solid, and Ralph Fiennes is expectedly note-perfect, but
the danger he poses, not only to Harry but to his followers Lucius Malfoy and
Peter Pettigrew, might have been further underscored.
Part of the problem with Goblet
of Fire is the manner in which it actively pauses to explore teenage rites
of passage, some of its diversions proving more effective than others.
Cumulatively, it feels like it’s going overboard in this area. Harry’s more
engaging when he’s trying to figure out his recurring Voldemort dream than mustering
the courage to invite Cho (Katie Leung) to the Yule Ball. Likewise, his falling
out with Ron, which even though it’s suitably silly and petty, isn’t nearly as
interesting as the prefacing sequence itself, in which his name is put forward for
the tournament and he is labelled a cheat. The willingness of Dumbledore and
Snape to use Harry as bait also makes for an effective twist (certainly, when
the former apologises at the end, saying “I
put you in terrible danger this year, Harry. I’m sorry” the kneejerk
response would be, “Well, if you cared that much, you’d never let him back to
Hogwarts, as he’s put in terrible danger there every year”).
Radcliffe’s competent as Harry, desperately in need of a
haircut (perhaps Newell instructed the stylists to think ‘70s), but his co-stars
are consistently eclipsing him by this point. Grint has the comic timing of a
natural (his pulling up the bedsheets when Hermione wakes him is worthy of Norman
Wisdom covering his nipples while getting a medical). My only reservation is
that I just don’t buy that Hermione fancies Ron; it feels entirely as if
Rowling is self-consciously trying to fight the tide of how she knows these
unrequited passions go (perhaps she never got over the ending of Pretty in Pink, and vowed to right such
Duckie wrongs).
There’s also a feeling that this is a reversion to not cutting the fat, after the
relatively brisk Prisoner of Azakaban;
I can’t see any good reason for retaining the romance between Hagrid and Madame
Maxime (Frances de la Tour, who it’s always good to see, even when the giant
effects are very variable; generally Newell doesn’t have Cuarón’s
eye for seamlessness), or the Rita Skeeter subplot, really (again, Miranda
Richardson is a marvel, particularly when given a chance to shine in a comedic
role, but Rita’s inessential to moving the story forward).
The Tri-Wizard Tournament sequences are competent but never
quite as enthralling as they could be; the best is probably the underwater challenge,
showcasing Harry’s “moral fibre”, but
it makes very little sense that he’d be awarded second place, having come in
third, but not first, if it was
Dumbledore’s view that he would have won if he hadn’t chosen to save both Ron
and Gabrielle.
Perhaps it’s just being spoilt by Cuarón,
but one can’t help think Harry Potter and
the Goblet of Fire could have been better, and that’s while readily
recognising it’s dramatically far superior to the first two movies. For every
sinister allusion to Snape (that he remains faithful to the Dark Lord – the
flashback scenes when Harry peers into the Pensieve are particularly engrossing,
there’s Jarvis Crocker singing “Can you
dance like a hippogriff?” (not merely on the nose, it practically severs it).
Newell can handle dramatic atmosphere, but comes rather unstuck with a broader
canvas (the Death Eaters attack on the Quidditch World Cup is exactly what you’d
expect from someone with no prior experience of action choreography). I’d
hazard Newell’s employment might be the problem of not wanting a filmmaker to overwhelm
the material. I know Cuarón was asked back for Goblet
of Fire, but there’s a lurking suspicion he was a little too much his own
person for Rowling and David Heyman. Hence sticking to someone who could
provide sufficient style and do what they
were told when David Yates came along.
Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.