saw the reviews i snipped from yahoo movies? i'm so impressed with the review talking about the movie being under the imperius curse and "dark and difficult times lie ahead- two and a half hours worth of it". haha! i watched harry potter and the goblet of fire on monday. i went into the cinema not expecting to be blown away, not expecting it to be able to follow the book entirely, not going to be something i will definitely approve of. but hey, that's correct, cos we can't go in with such high expectations. but i did have some hope for it. we start with the riddle house scene. the atmosphere was just right. frank bryce wasn't limping, but that's alright. the house was just what i imagined it to be. i feel my hopes rising. then, when frank peeps into the room... barty crouch jr? *jaws dropped* "huh?" it's fine that they cut the front a lot, leaving out the part at the dursleys, at the weasleys, but it was rather sad they cut the quidditch cup so much. the set was pretty magnificient, but that was all they showed. no leprechauns, no veelas. they made krum look like he was so enjoying the attention. "yeah! yeah!" *pumps fist into the air* that was pure strange. things start to go wrong at the part where they modified the death eater's merry making. no bouncing muggles, no drinking and laughing. the death eaters looked like KKK torching tents. the atmosphere was wrong. it was "get out of the way or you'll get burnt" not "the death eaters are here and it's reminiscent of the days of you-know-who so flee!" harry gets trampled on, faints, gets left at the camp site, barty crouch appears with a wand (wow i'm amazed they managed to simplify everything) and sends the dark mark into the sky. what? i can accept some changes made to shorten the time. after all, cramming 700+ pages into 2.5 hours is a mean feat. but i would have expected them to cut out the unimportant parts. there were 3 things they could have done. (1) concentrate on creating that magical atmosphere. it's harry potter, they're wizards, and this is the magical community after all. (2) focus on the triwizard tournament. there is plenty of action. it is extremely interesting and engaging. (3) stick to the plot. this book has a very rich plot. the twist at the end is so delicious, the confession of barty crouch jr is highly revealing. unfortunately, the movie did none of this. all magical feeling was lost, the plot is lost, and the triwizard tournament was distorted beyond recognition. instead, it wasted time on unfunny small jokes that contributed nothing to the plot. things missed out: (a whole long list, but i shan't be too particular about all details; i'll just stick to the "simplified plot") why did mr crouch just drop dead in the forest? and no one was surprised? going by the simplified plot, his death was unnecessary, and they didn't even have to show that and confuse us. what was the significance of the appearance of the death eaters at the quidditch world cup? as a matter of fact, which team won the quidditch world cup? i don't remember hearing which the 2 teams were. maybe, we're supposed to recognise the colours of the ireland flag, notice that the weasleys' faces were painted white and green, and thus deduce from their celebration in the tent that ireland won. oh, and they seemed to like krum. what, krum is on the ireland team? there was no explanation on priori incantatum. no one understood why their two wands would react and give that kind of effect. was it voldemort's intention? huh? so we know moody was actually barty jr in disguise. so we know why he helped harry. but why did he treat malfoy that way? we know malfoy's dad is a death eater too.. instead, the movie was plagued with some unimportant jokes from the book, as well as a whole lot of made-up nonsense: filch was running and panting heavily up and down the great hall, looking secretive about the durmstrangs and beauxbatons arriving. what's new? yah, so filch is a squibb, but he can still stand at the door and announce the arrival. that'll do. malfoy the white bouncing ferret. ok, this was in the books. but it didn't climb into people's pants for goodness sake. the dragon animation was cool, but the whole process was quite stupid. if you wanted to chain the dragon in the first place (it wasn't chained in the book) then don't bother making it break out later on. you gave it wings, then don't make it scale the roofs of the castle like a lizard when chasing after harry. harry could summon his firebolt (accio firebolt!) from so far off, then he jolly well could do that when his firebolt was only inches away form his fingertips. and finally, if you made the dragon strong and big and powerful, don't make it faint/die/concuss just because it rammed into a bridge like any other it had destroyed earlier on! mcgonagall did NOT teach them how to dance. what the?.. it was so stupid and painful to watch. geez. i really can't imagine why they wanted that stretched stupid bathroom scene with moaning myrtle. MOANING myrtle. she is constantly in depression, she doesn't go about giggling and trying to tease harry. ugh. grindylows looked like mini octopuses with arms, or just little creatures in frilly dresses. and harry used some unknown spell to shoot upwards from the bottom of the water. and we dunno why the four hostages were alive for so long, looking eerie, underwater. we dunno why the mermaids looked so different from the one in the picture on the bathroom either. strange, innit? why did viktor krum start hexing people in the maze that had swallowing plants? why did he get cataracts all of a sudden? what was that stupid band doing/singing at the yule ball? and the dancing was horrible. poorly chereographed. bleagh. why did hermione start sobbing like that anyway? why bother stretching out the part on rita skeeter interviewing harry in the broom cupboard? it wasn't even important. the importance of rita skeeter is the animagus revelation. if you're not showing that, all rita skeeter nonsense is unnecessary. ludo bagman or dobby or winky would have contributed more to the plot. i REALLY don't understand why they made dumbledore like that. he's supposed to be wise, calm and composed. instead, when harry's name came out of the goblet, he started yelling his own head off, then proceeded to try and rip harry's head off like a raving lunatic. it was totally wrong.... totally off! this movie could have been made much better. i didn't come out with that "duh" feeling as i did after alfonso cuaron butchered the third movie, but still, this one is just a movie full of chopping, salah-editing, unfunny jokes and bad decisions. posted by Yee 6:45 PM . . .
