Nov 21, 2005 10:04 PM
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(Updated Nov 21, 2005 10:04 PM)
As I’m sure all of you are aware, there are two types of people in this world, (no no… of course I won’t give you the obvious “those who’ve read Harry Potter and those who haven’t”…), yeah so there are two types of people- one who justify the making of the Harry Potter films and those who do not. And it doesn’t take too much brains to guess which category I belong to. You see, I am a self proclaimed Harry Potter maniac. And when I say maniac, I mean the books. Only.
Getting straight to the point, let me make it clear that the first two Potter films (I didn’t get to se the third one) were some of the worst adaptations of a text as I could possibly have thought of. The films came nowhere near the enchanting quality that the books had and, in fact, if anything they ruined completely the beautiful and dreamlike world of the books. I can’t get started with the flaws in the movies, there are just too many to bother…
Instead I shall focus on this last one that I’ve seen. Harry potter and the goblet of fire.
best of the lot
Harry Potter and the Goblet of fire scores over the other films for sure. But only because the others were only too bad. Keeping on with the trend of showing things that never once occur in the books, HPGOF exaggerates scenes to add plenty of visual appeal and oomph. This works quite well except for loyal fans like me who go wild when anything shown on screen does not exactly match the text. Yet, it’s saying something that I came out of the theatre having enjoyed myself. (However, that could also have been because I went in without any high hopes…)
the children (?) not any more
I’m sure most of the people who’ve seen the film will agree with me when I say that the artistes in the film, and I mean the child artistes here, look a trifle too old to look believable. Daniel Radcliffe does a Shahrukh Khan in the bathtub. Only here he looks more macho than the King Khan, replete with muscles and a great body that prove he’s slightly older than the age of 14 that he’s trying to portray. Ron (Rupert Grint) is his usual self (sans the old hairdo, of course). And now comes the surprise package… Emma Watson. Well, that wasn’t really a surprise now, was it? I mean, it was about three years ago that I heard two guys in my class describing Hermione on screen as ‘hot’. Well, if she was ‘hot’ then, it’s nothing compared to what she’s now. Looking more and more a woman now, Emma still manages to portray her role fairly. Definitely strikingly beautiful, she’s even learnt how to cry convincingly on screen now. Which, by the way, brings us to the next important fact about HPGOF.
emoting blues
Now, when was the last time I saw someone in Harry Potter acting? But HPGOF throws up some surprises. As I already mentioned earlier, Hermione successfully carries out a crying scene in the film. Amazingly Dan also acts in some parts. Ron is his usual self.
The Weasly twins are also their usual self, that is to say, cool with a great sense of timing. And I must mention that the Patil twins were also a good find of the director’s. A small but effective role. Cho Chang was good, Krum didn’t have much to do (than flex his muscles), Cedric too was restricted to smiling most of the time to show how cute he was, Moody was no great shakes, Fleur acted well only in the part where she had to carry off a swimsuit. (But my personal favourite among all these great finds was the dragon who actually had a longer role than the rest of the crew put together.) the flips were there too- Neville looked very out of place with his tusks, Barty Crouch-both senior and junior were not given too much to do, Percy and Bill Weasly were not even mentioned, Dobby and Winky and the entire SPEW stuff was forgotten.
Dumbledore
And here’s what ruins the movie the most. Albus Dumbledore. While in the book, Dumbledore’s character is one who holds things and people together, here he’s the one who’s the most confused and oppressed. Where he needs to whisper, he shrieks; where he needs to exhume a quiet power, he pulls Harry by the scruff of his collar; where he has to personify dignity, he walks holding up his robes and (believe it or not) runs in them too!
I mean there’s only how much you can misinterpret a character. This is way too much. But since Dumbledore’s been sidelined like many other things and people, this aspect of the film goes unnoticed by most.
the final verdict
Go watch the film (assuming tickets are available, of course) if you can watch it with an open mind and if you haven’t read the book for the last one year at least. This is the only way you can have an enjoyable time and a paisa vasool experience. After all, you’ve paid for it, haven’t you?
