Goblet of Awesome

It may have been 12:01 in the middle of the night and I may have been utterly exhausted beyond words. My eyes may have been ridiculously sore since I was wearing contacts for the first time in over two years. We may have been surrounded by more Highland Park High Schoolers than I knew existed in the world, and one of them may have been dressed as Draco Malfoy. It may have been at Cityplace, the worst theatre EVER, one to which I vow never to go to again, with no working surround-sound and only two front speakers that were horribly imbalanced so that the background effects were occasionally louder than the actual dialogue. And the projection room light may have been turned on with about 40 minutes left in the movie, so a huge yellow glare was projected onto the screen during the entire climax of the movie.

All these things may be true, but the important part is even more true: Last night I got to go see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. And it was awesome.

Let me preface that by saying that if you haven’t read the book, this movie will not make a damn lick of sense, the ending will feel ridiculously cheated, and you will have nothing but questions at the end.

But the movie is excellent, condensing practically every important part of a 700+ page book into two and a half hours of (amazingly surprisingly) good acting and effects. At first, I was sort of disappointed in the result. As the credits rolled, it felt more like a companion popup book to the novel, bright and exciting pictures to go along with the high points of the story with no substance. But really, if I were asked to work up a treatment of GoF, it would have been at least thirty minutes longer and 15 times worse.

Also, it doesn’t hurt that this movie is ridiculously funny. One thing that has been extremely lacking from the film version of HP is the quirkiness inherent in Rowling’s writing, and this movie is practically nothing but nice, well-delivered jokes interspersed with tasty action sequences.

There were a few things that I categorically disagree with: I hate their characterization of Dumbledore with a fierce passion (Dumbledore does not constantly shout and yell at people, he is quiet and effective and self-possessed) and it’s the only part of the movie that I think is actually at odds with the spirit of the book. I also really wish they would have used Snape more, and not just because I have a huge man-crush on Alan Rickman. I think that the dynamic there is really vital to the book, and just using him for a couple of (okay, really good) scenes is a big waste, artistically. My only other major complaint is about the really weird disconnect in the rising action up to the final task – it was like 4 completely random scenes that needed playing, but there was no way to link them together, so lets just drop them right in and move on. Just…weird. But not deal-breaking.

Something that is neither here nor there: it feels like the movie is utterly lacking in characterization for all the new characters (Cedric, Fleur, Krum, the Headmasters) and I was all ready to ding the movie for that, until I realized that the exact same thing is true in the book. Rowling’s characters are often excellently drawn, but done so broadly that you naturally can ascribe anything you want to them, even though they never have any characterization through the whole book you come out at the end with a fully-formed picture in your mind, regardless. Which makes me re-evaluate my entire theory on why I like the books, but that’s an entirely different long-winded essay.

And just to round it out, the things that I loved:

• Actual acting by all the principles that was really good, even by Daniel “HE WAS THEIR FRIEND!” Radcliffe. And Emma Watson sort of insanely rocks. In fact, all the casting was just top-notch (my dislike for the Dumbledore interpretation notwithstanding).
• So much Neville that I practically wanted to weep with joy. He’s easily my second favorite character and I was incredibly gratified to see him get some nice screen-time.
• The entire, utterly cracked-out, Yule Ball scene, which was both incredibly true to the book, and completely awesome. There’s a level of delicious awkward-ness to the entire affair that speaks to a place deep within me.
• Those two scenes about figuring out the egg. First with Cedric seemingly hitting on Harry to an insane degree (“mull it over in the hot water?” If that’s not a come-on, I don’t know what is.) and then Myrtle all “sexual harassment 101” in the bathroom? I know that they both were practically verbatim from the book, but man, put in video form and it was just… so damn perfect that it brought a tear to my eye.
• And okay, basically all of the jokes, which I won’t spoil here, but they just put me in an excellent mood for the entire movie. I don’t need a word-for-word reenactment if you’ve got some nice comedic timing. I am easily amused, don’t ya know
  

So, anyways. LOVE. Go see it. And take me with you.