Sunny Saturday afternoon: I find myself at the IMAX Dome, Wadala, breathlessly awaiting the next, much-hyped instalment of my favourite book's movie version: Harry Potter. See- I'm a die hard fan of the books, and so it's but natural to set them as a benchmark for the movie.
I confess myself both surprised and (predictably) somewhat disappointed.
The book is a 700+ page saga that, even after 2 sequels, I consider to be the best in the series. With this in my mind, I stepped in to sample this latest offering by Warner Brothers.
Assuming you all know the story, I'll fast forward through plot details.
How it begins
Stunningly.
It's all very impressive, even though a dozen or so chapters have been ruthlessly chopped off entirely, to make way for the more meaningful story. The spectacular Quidditch World Cup final match is also regrettably omitted.
We race to Hogwarts in the very next scene, having missed all the tension and chaos this event generates in the Ministry and the Magical community. Again, instantly, obviously due to the time constraints, the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang delegations arrive amidst much visual splendour. The Triwizard Tournament is declared open and the Goblet of Fire is placed in the Entrance Hall.
Meanwhile, all the characters have been introduced- many disappointing and annoying me.
Cho Chang: Ugly! Or rather: not stunningly beautiful as she is supposed to be.
Viktor Krum: Too good-looking. Or atleast not ugly and duck-footed as he should be.
Fleur Delacour: Again, she's supposed to be stunningly, ethereally beautiful. The actress looks weird.
The rest are all good or tolerable.
The whole Goblet of Fire sequence is OK even though it's (and I'm just going to keep on saying this) quite rushed through.
That's essentially what bugged me about the movie. There's just no space in it for the enormity of the situations to sink in. Immediately after this unintentionally non-shocker, we zip to the Dragons' scene.
Daniel Radcliffe's non-acting and wooden expressions spoil everything.
So, imagining it from the Point of View of a non-reader, I might even be led to believe that battling dragons is a completely normal and everyday task for a wizard. Because of this racy pace, sub-themes like the animosity between Ron and Harry become quite pointless and completely bewildering considering they become friends just a few minutes later. Also, the matter-of-facted performance of Harry in this and the 3rd task completely glosses over the ''difficulty'' quotient of the book, where he struggles to accomplish the Accio charm and the numerous hexes and jinxes later. This just makes everything cold and easy for me.
Ironically, Dumbledore (and why is he jumping about, screaming so much!? It's totally ridiculous. He is supposed to be jolly and mild, except in rare cases. Was there any motive for this?) says at the end: ''We must ultimately choose between what's easy and what's right''. Ha! Ironic!
Understandably, the SPEW theme has been given the go-by considering it does little for the story in general.
The humour angle is done well especially with the Weasleys. The Yule Ball is pretty and well choreographed and the Ron-Hermione spat is fit in quite nicely into the whole thing.
Again, we aren't really shown why Harry hasn't bothered to work out the clue yet (jealousy of Cedric- he's cute!), so it just seems quite blah. The 2nd task is nice and all that. Very striking.
A lot of the book is completely missing here.
There's no Rita Skeeter vendetta involving Hagrid (though Hermione is reduced to a photograph of them hugging); there's no Ludo Bagman; there's no Barty Crouch babbling and wandering into Hogwarts - just a shot of him lying dead. It's all very sad, for me. I really wanted to see all that happening.
The third task is completely non-magical, bit it's still super-cool.
Voldemort? Is Brilliant. Is Awesome. Is absolutely, completely satisfyingly Spot-On.
How it ends:
Now, this is where I really cross over from liking to somewhat disliking the movie. All the previous stuff is nothing compared to the insipid and killingly mild ending.
The Harry-Voldemort confrontation is fine, even if it's (yes) rushed. There's no sense of shock amongst the Death Eaters now that Voldemort's finally up and kicking. Like it's all ho-hum and routine. Also the wand connecting scene should have been improved (Dumbledore, interestingly, doesn't even explain why this happens. It just does.)
In a scene that almost made me scream out in frustration for a lost cause: when Cedric and Harry return, the stadium hushes up; obviously because such bizarre murders are completely commonplace in their world. Right? For all his talk of sticking to the book (or Book, if I may), if Mike Newell had obediently filmed this scene with people screaming in shock and disbelief, running around in chaos- because their hero is dead, the right vibe of fear and uncertainty would have been conveyed.
Daniel Radcliffe- being inept , betrays no sense of grief or shock at the magnitude of the events occurring. Again: all normal and happy. Unlike the book, where he's numb and almost delirious, here he merely points out that ''their wands connected''. Bah. Go away, boy.
The entire (vital) conflict between Dumbledore/Hogwarts and Crouch/Ministry is given the miss. WHY?! It's obviously one of the most important fall-outs of Lord Voldemort's comeback! Again, nothing about the Dementor kissing Crouch Jr. that leads to this fight.
In the end-of-year feast, Dumbledore reveals that <shock?>Cedric was murdered! And by none other than Lord V!!!
By now I have given up my expectations, so it's no surprise that the students take this in without batting an eyelid. Evil, murderous villains rising from the proverbial ashes are more common than their breakfast bread, no? It's all cool, people.
The movie ends with much chatter and happiness. No one has been killed recently after all. And no aforementioned evil villain has come back. We're all happy! Yaay!
ARE THESE PEOPLE MAD???
Where's all the sombreness and heavy foreboding that should have been there here now?
I? Am angry. Mike Newell, I admit, has done a brilliant job till now. But the handling of these last few scenes has completely undone it for me. While I oohed and aahed and laughed with the audience throughout the movie, I came out completely disgruntled.
It's probably weird that I've recommended and given 3 stars the movie after this long rant. But compared to the last 3 ones (which I'd give 1, 1 and 2 stars respectively), I really think this was a stellar effort, unfortunately botched by non-acting by Harry (though the others are great) and a poor climax having NO sense of catastrophe.
I give kudos to Mike Newell. It's sad that he was paid only $1 million while Chris Columbus of the first 2 movies was paid $10 million.
I would recommend everyone to watch the movie for:
For book-readers: to see the awesome visuals and to compare with the book.
For non-book readers: to see the movie and be reassured by me that the book is several times its superlative. Read it right now!
I conclude only by saying (phew!) that though the book would have been better translated on screen in 2 parts, the present version is better. If the put-offs mentioned were not there, I would be positively blown away.
PS: The movie is really awesome, seen in the Dome! Catch it all there, guys! Even if it's way out in the wilderness. (mangroveness?)
PPS: I realize this was too critical, but that's just how it is.
