Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire

Harry Potter and The Goblet Of Fire once again changes directors this time giving Mike Newell the chance to offer his own unique vision for the wizarding world. Unfortunately his vision is well kind of odd. There are some choices here that just kind of boggle the mind. I suppose they begin with the long haircuts on the boys, which I don't know what that was meant to add, but it does not add much. The strange choices do not end there though as we are given the infamous moment where the kindly Dumbledore interrogates Harry about his name coming out of the Goblet of Fire by physically assaulting him and yelling in his face. I have to imagine that was Newell, and not Michael Gambon since that moment goes against everything else we've seen from the character up until that point or after it for that matter. Then there are the little things like the horribly awkward transition to a rock band during the ball scene which caused me to think another film had been spliced in the first time I saw the film. I could go on, but I'll just also mention David Tennant, yeah what was that exactly? That's not to say this is a terrible film. Technically speaking this one where they take out quite a bit of unneeded fat from the novel, I don't think we really needed 12 years an Elf randomly thrown in there, and there is fun to be had from the Harry Potterverse's version of the Olympics. There's Brendan Gleeson as the teacher who seems to take a liking to Harry, Gleeson is always a good thing. Unfortunately the missteps do overwhelm to a certain degree diminishing the effect of certain moments that could have been highlights of the series. The return of Voldermort in particular, though while not bad, potentially could have been something unforgettable in say with Alfonso Cuaron at the helm. The film perhaps indicated where a director could go wrong, and perhaps that contributed to why we'd get a single vision for the rest of the series. 

2.5/5