happy, yet... becoming underwhelmed

Mmmm, butterbeer at the Drafthouse.

Yes, last night was the midnight screening of HP4- The Goblet of Fire. And don't get me wrong, I really liked the movie. But I was a little disappointed, which I suppose was inevitable due to the sheer amount of information that had to be left out just to get a movie under 6 hours.

That will be the shame of the rest of the movie series, right there. The books have gotten so big, that huge amounts of information, characters and exposition are just going to disappear in a rush. The directors will have to count on the audience, a) having read the books to fill in the gaps, or b) being quick enough to catch the blink-and-you-miss-it references. Goblet had to rush so swiftly from Triwizard challenge to challenge, that the characters, which are the driving force of any tale, become rapid sketches of themselves.

Spoiler alert!!

Dobby was completely lost, along his entire subplot (although I did like the substitution of Neville), and Sirius Black's scene was such a throw-away, he should have been cut entirely. Malfoy, whose reaction to Voldemort's return would have made a great foil to everyone else's (not that anyone else got to have a reaction- keep reading...) was in two scenes (barely). I greatly enjoyed the ferret bouncing, though, so that made up for some of it. If you hadn't (at the very least) seen the other three movies, most of the character relationships would have made little sense.

Which is the catch-22 of translating any series-based media to the big screen- you can't keep explaining the same points over and over, but you can't NOT explain some of them without losing your audience. Director Mike Newell (with screenwriter, Steve Kloves) had the unenviable task of making sense of an entire universe. Goblet kinda rewrote all the characters, and turned a lot of what you "knew" on its head. You can't do that in 2 1/2 hours.

What I missed the most was Voldemort's return and the absolute fear that should have instilled in all the characters. Yes, the entire movie was very dark and scary (compared to the others), and yes, Cedrick's death at the end was wrenching (kudos to the guy who played his Dad!), and Ralph Fiennes was at his chilling, creepy best, but I'm talking after. Cedric died, Dumbledore made a speech, and we end with Hermione hitting us over the head with the cliche- "It's all going to change, isn't it," and then everyone nods in agreement and, that's it. If there had been any way to give Goblet a "happy ending," that was it. Oi! I would have preferred the sound of Voldemort laughing as we run into credits, if we have to resort to a cliche that blatant. Big build-up, three movies worth of talking up the terror of the Dark Lord, and basically we get, "aw shucks, guess we might have some problems on down the line." I really liked the scene in the book where the Minister of Magic keeps trying to deny what happened, it gives Dumbledore's speech the justification and weight it needs. With just the information in the movie, when Dumbledore make reference to the Ministry not wanting the students to know, my first question was, why?

It's a good movie, don't get me wrong. There's a lot to like, but I was left kinda empty. I expected more of a payoff....