Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

[j_garcia]

Just saw it (sneek preview). I'm not exactly a Harry Potter fan, but the movies are entertaining enough. Trailer looked really good, but I didn't feel like it delivered on what the trailer hinted at. It's about par for the course, and I'd actually say I liked the third movie better. It IS a bit darker than the previous ones, but still didn't seem like a totaly cohesive story. Not bad, not great. The dragon was the best part IMO

 

[brian32672]

I am actually going to see it today. It is my mothers B-Day. So she is taking a half day off.
We (mother and I) have both read all the books. And are avid fans of the movies.
However, the books are better.
IMO, the first is always the best. But in this case 1 & 2 were good.
3 was a little darker, for various reasons. Including Director and some cast changes.
Basically I was quite unhappy when Richard Harris died. And was replaced with Michael Gambon.
As far as the books go, Richard Harris shows more of what Albus Dumbledore is actually like. Very kind hearted and very wise...
Granted #3 was not bad at all. But also the 3rd book was longer, so a lot of stuff had to be cut from the movie. The 4th book was immense, so I am assuming that a whole bunch will be cut from the movie. (I will see in about 2 hours)

Being a Potter fan, I am guessing that even if the movie is adequate - Then I will be happy & entertained.

 

[j_garcia]

It seemed very disjointed; you could tell that it had to be compressed to fit the story, because I felt as if it could have been filled in a lot more (but I didn't want a longer movie). During the whole thing there was always this feeling of "I know there's more going on than what is being shown." I'd give it a B. It isn't disappointing; it was entertaining, but not setting any standards. It was a little more intense than the others at times, so it may not be so good for really small children.

 

[brian32672]

Ok, just got back.
WOW, for HP fans I will say this is about the best movie. Yeah, there are holes in the movie - Specially if you have read the book. The main hole is there is only one meeting with Serious Black. If you have read the book, you will know what I am talking about. Also in Dumbledores thoughts there is a big hole.
All that aside, this movie IMO has the best special effects of all the others combined.
For small children, like Garcia said - You may have to think on bringing small children. There are some deaths in the movie, and some not so nice curses.
I was completely entertained from the start of this movie. The last 2 minutes is kinda the only bogus thing. Because I thought the ending should have been much better (also enter in another hole for Serious Black).

 

[Sheep]

Lucas takes the special effects award. His whole movie is special effects....even the acting!


SheepStar

 

[j_garcia]

That's what I said before...he might as well have animated the WHOLE THING. There's a point at which its too much. Harry Potter has a fair amount, but at least it isn't to the point that every shot is almost 90% CG (and if it is, it doesn't announce itself).

 

[j_garcia]

Sorry, may not have been on this forum, but it was in a Star Wars thread...

 

[gellor]

Ok, just got back.
WOW, for HP fans I will say this is about the best movie. Yeah, there are holes in the movie - Specially if you have read the book. The main hole is there is only one meeting with Serious Black. If you have read the book, you will know what I am talking about. Also in Dumbledores thoughts there is a big hole.
All that aside, this movie IMO has the best special effects of all the others combined.
For small children, like Garcia said - You may have to think on bringing small children. There are some deaths in the movie, and some not so nice curses.
I was completely entertained from the start of this movie. The last 2 minutes is kinda the only bogus thing. Because I thought the ending should have been much better (also enter in another hole for Serious Black).

Yeah, we saw it last night. It seems to be mostly the first part of the movie that has some wierd continuity issues. But that's mostly because there are so many relevant details that needed to be shown that it would have made it almost a 3.5+ hour movie to give it continuity.

Also, there tends to be a bit of jumping around in the books, anyway. (Its august and they're doing stuff...then rowling says they spent several months in class, then its january. I'd imagine kinda hard to make something like that flow very easily.

There were a couple of kids in the theater near us that had to be taken out of the theater at one point. (The curses)

But all in all, I thought it was a beautifully done movie, and quite an admirable adaptation of what was nearly an 800 page book.

A further comment about the local theater, though...they left the house lights on for the first 20 minutes. *sigh*

 

[BostonMark]

son and I loved it

I also missed seeing more Gary Oldman than I thought would be in it from the book. Nevertheless, I feel they did a good job picking the most important themes and scenes from the book for the movie. The teen romance thing reminded me of every John Hughes movie I had ever seen. Ron was Ducky from Pretty in Pink. Hermione was Molly Ringwald etc. etc. Some pretty scary and serious scenes too. The father's grief over his son was very real and emotional.

We also had a movie theater screw up. Right as Harry meets Voldemort, the screen starts to show Movie Ads until the whole audience was yelling. They started where they left off though. Sheesh, the projectionist almost got lynched!

 

[CaliHwyPatrol]

I saw it last week and I thought it was entertaining as well. At near 2.5 hours, I felt it was just long enough, and if they had added in all the details and made it identical to the book, it would have been waaaaaaaay too long to hold my interest.

The only theater problems we encountered was the guy sitting next to my girl that kept burping, and the annoying people sitting behind us that kept talking.

~Chuck

 

[mike c]

i watched this movie the other day ...

its a pretty good movie, especially compared to the "kiddie" type first few movies. the problem here is that it was rated GP. (i guess money comes first) and dang nabbit, there was a little kid kicking the back of my seat every few friggin minutes!!! if it was only an adult, id have kicked his a$$.
in retrospect, maybe i should have kicked his dad's a$$.

back to the movie: it was DEFINITELY not supposed to be GP. (no ulterior motive) there was just too much violence and death (for kids, not me)

the premise about the contest was stupid though. why would they feel sad about the death of a contestant when they willingly joined a "high death risk" contest. thats just like cheering for a guy playing russian roulete, and then crying if he blows his head off.

 

[sts9fan]

Well I watched the tird one yesterday and man are these movies crap. This is the kind of stuff that will rot your kids brains. I mean there is barely a plot and it was maybe the most anticlimatic movie I have ever seen. 2.5 hours of them wondering around then it ends. wow!! The story really was a 90min one with filler.

 

[j_garcia]

Rot? Have you taken a look at TV these days? I think this sort of thing is OK for 10yr olds, maybe pushing it a bit on this particular movie, but it was definitely geared toward pre-teen/teen viewers, not adults, so what do you expect? It sounds like you didn't like the other movies, so why did you bother going to see this one?

It's part of a series as well, thus the anti-climactic ending.

 

[ducker]

I saw this opening night on IMAX. nice.. really enjoyed it. I haven't read the book and I agree it did seem quite disjointed. My wife, who has read the book, said that you really needed to of read the book to fill in the gaps. But overall the movie did a really good job.

Grading for the movie sounds like:
A+ for those that have read the book
B+ for those that have not.

 

[Rock&Roll Ninja]

I thought that the film "jumped around" especially in the first 15 minutes. Not story-wise (well, that too), but each take seemed to be 2-3 seconds shorter than you'd expect. It was a little irritating, but it clears-up by the half-hour mark, or I had just gotten used to it by then.