The Daily Bloon

Hey, look! A review! Let’s poke it!

Title: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Genre (Movie): Erm…fantasy?
Description: Harry is in some crazy tournament where he is almost guaranteed to die. Guess what? He doesn’t.
Quickrating: 6.5/10

Ok, picture the book Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire as a cicada. Yes, one of those green bugs that make that noise and are so annoying, they in themselves are proof that God either hates us or does not exist. Now picture the movie as one of those empty husks that the cicadas leave behind–something that gives you an exact impression of the bug, but gives you little or no joy to grind into your boot heel like it would to find the real thing.
This, my friends, is why I love metaphors. Especialy the awful ones. *giggle*

Those are the two words I can use to best describe the movie: “empty husk”. It gives you the basic story, to be sure, and the main ideas and such, but it completely skips over so many scenes that aren’t necessarily vital to the plot, but still make it seem all the more shallow for cutting them. It left me feeling disappointed. But it still got a 6.5, so open this baby up and find out why.

We’re going to cover the design now. I’m going to start with the things I didn’t like, then go on to the things I did. I didn’t like the Death Eater design at all. It looked like the KKK had simply put their uniforms in the wrong washing machine. I didn’t like the fact that despite being a master wizard, Dumbledore seemed to be unable to get a damn change of clothes the whole movie. I didn’t like that all of a sudden, Harry and company started wearing normal clothes around the Hogwarts castle. I distinctly remember that all the previous years, it had been only robes, but this time around, they spend about 10% of the movie in their uniforms. They need to get some better hall monitors at that place. I hated the design of Sirius when he speaks to Harry through the fireplace in the Gryffindor commons.

I loved the design for Voldemort. He was human enough, but also evil-lookin’ enough. I loved the Hungarian Horntail design. It looked awesome and moved believably enough. I liked the uniforms of the “champions”.

Those are all nit-picky things, though. Let’s cover the acting.
Warning: If you haven’t read the book or can’t remember anything, you may want to skip over this section, because there’s some big spoilers in here.

Here I am, three days after seeing the movie, still trying to decide whether I liked the acting in the movie or not. I suppose it all boils down to one thing–the scene where Harry is crying over the death of Cedric. He becomes a blubbering mess. He freaks out. He….well, eh. He cries pretty hard. And I can’t tell whether it was just melo-dramatic or realistic. Take that as you will, but in any case, that means that the acting is somewhat iffy. There’s no place that I could really look at and say, “Wow. I am impressed. You acted the shit outta that scene.” I just didn’t feel it. The new actor for Dumbledore really isn’t working for me, either. He’s good (”YOU SHALL NOT PASS!”), but I’m not sure this is his role. But oh well, mustn’t argue with Death. (Bring my main man back, you bad, bad reaper.)

And speaking of the Cedric death? When it actually happened? It seemed the least important thing ever. I mean, it literally went like this.
Cedric: “Who’s there?”
Voldemort enters. Voldemort: *crazy death spell!*
Cedric: *falls to ground*
Harry: “Aw, shit.”

Ok, so, maybe not that last line, but still. The epic death of Cedric took less than 3 seconds. I was not impressed.

END SPOILERS

Other things I felt were missing: details about the other “champions’” victories and failures. Especially in the dragon fights. Sure, Harry doesn’t see them, but Ron and Hermoine could at least clue him in afterward. I mean, I like dragons. We need more dragons in our lives.
A BIG THING: Quidditch. WHAT THE HELL? “Let the games begin–Oh, wait, I forgot, we’re not gonna show you ANYTHING. No Quidditch for y00, suckas!” Balls indeed.
I felt like the friendship between Mad-Eye Moody and Harry was missing. In the book, they become steadfast friends, but in the movie? Eh, they don’t really hang that much. Plus, I missed all of Harry’s other classes. We got nothing about them. NOTHING! Snape shows up maybe a grand total of 3 times in the whole movie. And admit it, you love that guy. The way he spits out the word “Ppppppotterrr….” Heheh. Love him to death.

All in all, a decent movie. But I really just felt that it raped the book. And raping books can’t be conducive to one’s health. It leads to paper cuts, yes it does. And those things sting like crazy.

Oh yeah, and Ron needs to cut his hair and stop being such a douchebag.

“*pout* Piss off!”–Ron-speak for “Look! I’m a douchebag! With a sparkly muscle-shirt and long hair! Douche in the bag!” What a douchebag.