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Alfonso, come back! All is forgiven!
 That
would be Alfonso Cuarón,
director of the third Harry Potter film, Prisoner
of Azkaban,
which survives the release of Goblet of Fire to
remain the most successful of the Potter movies. Mike
Newell does his best to zip things along, trimming
the fat and hitting the important plot points -- mostly
-- while letting character development breathe. But
like Christopher Columbus's two, Goblet feels
like a film doing its best to be extremely faithful
to a long book in a reasonable amount of screen time,
where Azkaban really
felt like a movie all on its own. Which is not to say Goblet is
a bad film. It's just that we're back to constant comparisons
with the source material and with the other movies.
Cuarón's Azkaban let us move past that.
While some things were trimmed for length -- even at
2:30 Goblet still feels short -- other events
were just, well, left out, and if you didn't know the
story you'd miss a few key things. Harry not getting
his Triwizard winnings to give to the twins, for instance
-- that's a big plot point to miss, I think, because
with
that
money they start their joke shop, which is a large
part of book V and has a small but important part in
book VI. And Rita Skeeter being an unregistered Animagus
has later repercussions.
There are definitely a few solid laughs
in Goblet, and some real moments of fright as
Harry takes one beating after another. The fourth-years
are appropriately teenaged, all emotional knees and
elbows, full of hormones and tempers and up and down
the scale of maturity. Cedric is the cool senior, genial
and casual, the guy you didn't mind cheering because
he didn't use his popularity to make anyone feel less
than he is. Neville takes a few crucial steps forward
in building his self-esteem.
As always, the special effects are glorious.
The flying-horse-drawn carriage of the Beauxbatons,
the Sturmdrang ship breaching
the waters, the underwater scenes in the lake looking
as densely populated as Finding Nemo, the creepy
Dark Marks undulating across the sky, transporting
by portkey, Sirius's Abyss-like face in the
fireplace (so much cooler than I'd envisioned!),
the evil hedge maze borrowed from Stanley Kubrick's The
Shining (although we were making jokes about David
Bowie's Labyrinth). Harry walks into a bitty
tent which obviously learned a few tricks from a Star
Trek shuttlecraft, because it's seven times larger
on the inside than the outside, and blurts in delight "I love magic." So
do we. Which made it disappointing that Newell entirely skipped
the Quidditch World Cup -- we only saw the teams introduced,
and then suddenly cut to the after-party without even
knowing who won! It's not even that Newell didn't want
to film an expensive flying scene with lots of CGI,
because he then adds in the Horntail chasing Harry
all over the campus, wrecking roof tile and destroying
bridges, when Rowling had Harry snatching the golden
egg faster than the other three champions got to theirs.
It felt unnecessary to have Harry plummeting and bashing
against things when Rowling had already provided lots
of excitement in the text.
I wasn't happy about this in book VI
either, but dangit, I like watching classroom
action! These are kids at school; there are
tests to study for and homework to do and the drudgery
of sitting through
a boring lecture. These repetitive actions anchor the
fantastical world. It's funny to see the details of
our lives turned on their heads to adapt to magical
uses (such as Spellotape, which is a riff on British
scotch tape, called "Sellotape"). At Hogwarts
in particular are the details like the Sorting Hat
ceremony and the various familiar ghosts -- we get
a glimpse of Moaning Myrtle only because she gave Harry
a clue, but Nearly Headless Nick and Peeves don't
even get a non-speaking flyby. It's important to be
grounded first before launching into the magical and
difficult-to-believe. I really don't demand
a slavish
adherence to the text, and I know scenes had to be
cut for length, but some of these things give the story
richness and texture,
and
as
any dieter
will tell you, if you cut too much fat you cut out
what
makes it tasty. I did not miss the elf C-plots
-- any of them -- nor did I miss Rita Skeeter's ongoing
irritance.
Daniel Radcliffe continues to improve
with each film. Of the main three, he doesn't really
do much acting;
his technique has been mainly a lot of yelling, appearing
adorably bewildered, and looking like Mary GrandPré's
illustrations. In Goblet we finally get some
real reaction out of him during the various tasks.
My sister (the huge Potterphile) and I both agreed
that while we didn't really tear up over Cedric's death
in the book, we did in the theatre, and for me at least
that was from Radcliffe weeping and clinging to Cedric
and sobbing his apologies. I finally felt Harry's
grief and the weight of his responsibility in that
moment. Rupert Grint did surprisingly well in the subtleties
of Ron's growing jealousy of his best friend. The narrowed
and glowering eyes, the hurt looks, the hung head --
Hermione rolls her eyes and grumbles "Boys!" in
exasperation, but when Harry and Ron make up in grunts
and half-sentences
hiding their feelings, it felt very authentic. Radcliffe
and Grint, as wombat61 pointed out, need to avoid gyms
at all costs if they're going to be shirtless again
before the seventh movie, because the actors are getting
a bit ahead of the characters and the rather nice pecs
they're both developing aren't yet appropriate.
Michael Gambon was a bit disappointing
this outing -- his accent was wandering all over the
place, and
he shows Dumbledore's cleverness too often, and at
the expense of his gentleness and mischief. Cho (with
a significant Scottish accent -- okay, shoot me for
insensitivity, but I laughed my head off at the dissonance)
was more of a cameo than the lingering crush from the
book, so I wonder if her subplot will be cut altogether
from the fifth movie. Ralph Fiennes as Voldemort was
a total letdown. The makeup does match the description
in the book, but man, he just looked like an albino
Yridian on a bad day. Snape is scary. This guy
was merely icky. I got no sense of menace, no evil
charisma slithering out from the screen, no feeling
of dread or horror, just a tallish guy in Stevie Nicks
robes and a latex head making speeches at Harry. As
Hitchcock pointed out, what you don't see is
usually the most frightening.
One thing I really didn't get: why the
strange emphasis on setting up Harry and Hermione,
when that's not where everyone ends up in later
books? It's not out of character, but in the book Hermione
doesn't jump on Harry in a desperate hug in the tent
before
the first task, and the meaningful little glances and
almost-touches were really supposed to be aimed at
Cho, I think. This is the time in their lives when
romance first appears, but you'd think the director
and screenwriter would have read ahead in the series
and gotten the pairings right.
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