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A bunch of us went to see Harry Potter and the Goblet Of Fire (Mike Newell) on its opening night last week. I?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢m a big fan of the books, but when it comes to the first three films, only Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Alfonso Cuar?ɬ?n , 2004), the third in the series, holds any ground as a work in and of itself.

This is my favourite of the (so far) six books in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. This one sees Harry somehow entered into the Triwizard Tournament, hosted at his school, Howgarts, and including guests and competitors from two other wizarding schools. It introduces a few more characters, mainly Mad Eye Moody (Brendon Gleeson) and Rita Skeeter (Miranda Richardson, whose character I was hoping to see more of) and last but not least, Mr. He Who Must Not Be Named himself, Lord Voldemort, played splendidly by Ralph Fiennes.

Goblet Of Fire was a visual delight, but despite Newell?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s insistence that he wouldn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t let special effects take over?¢‚Ǩ¬¶ they did. The book is huge so obviously some parts had to be taken out. Did I say some parts? I meant most parts. The story is truncated to such a degree that any of the flow that Rowling surely worked hard to cultivate was lost, resulting in one of the most uneven and fast-paced films I have ever seen. I do understand why things had to be taken out and I don?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t really have a problem with it ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú it?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s just that they didn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t do it in a way that actually worked. But back to the visuals: some of them were breathtaking, such as the Quiddich World Cup stadium and the dragon sequence. Newell had apparently never worked with CGI before, so whoever was actually in charge of it did an incredible job of creating settings, props and even characters that looked fantastic. But it seemed like the visuals were treated as though they were a main character instead of blending into the background and creating a believable setting. He also used them to created major action sequences, which I think distracted us from the story.

There was excitement in regards to the fact that Newell is the first Brit to direct a Harry Potter film, which as you all know, take place in England. His main attraction was that he supposedly truly understood what a British boarding school is like, despite having not attended one in his youth. I will say that this film did indeed have the most believable scenes within Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The kids acted more like kids, and there were some amusing teacher-student interactions that did help to make it a bit more believable (not that I think Harry is real. I really don?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t).

But he also went overboard a bit, here. I found some of the scenes between the students that didn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t involve wizarding tournaments and the like to be a bit overdone. It?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s a shame to see young actors being coached to overact so relatively early in their careers. In some respects I would say that some of the child actors took a step back in their development as actors, despite (and probably because of) having now worked with Newell. Perhaps he should stick to working with actors who have already been written off, such as Julia Roberts, Kirsten Dunst and Julia Stiles.

It had its exciting moments, and it was sad at some parts… but some sections that I thought would be sad or whatever were really pretty blah. It was funny, though (almost as funny as the row of excited fifteen-year-old girls in front of us). All in all, this was a fun movie. Not brilliant, not terrible, but fun. I think that Azkaban, however, is still the only one in the series (so far) that can hold its own.