Review: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
The fourth installment of the Harry Potter series is about to be shown around the world in cinemas. I was fortunate enough to be able to get a quick peek at it before the Australian release of December 1st.
This fourth movie see’s Harry at Hogwarts as a 14 year old student, about to face his first ball/social/prom during the period of time that the school is hosting the Tri-Wizard tournament. (Where students of Hogwarts, Durmstrung (Bulgarian all boys wizarding school) and Beaubaton (French all girls witching school).
I’m not going to go into massive detail as to what was contained within the movie so as not to spoil it for anybody, but there are some thoughts I’d like to share.
This fourth installment brings a new director to the table, and with it a much darker atmosphere, which I feel is certainly a good thing, but somewhere along the place the improvments (darker atmosphere, the kids growing up) something else fell out. The pace of this fourth film seemed too slow, with not enough progession or smooth segways into the next step of the story. It just seemed to lag in one section and then bounce with little explanation to the next scene, which also felt slow.
Of the four this was definatly the worst as far as pace goes, which is unfortunate as it bring many other improvements to the table, these improvments however are not sufficient to raise it above me calling this installment the worst of the lot.
If you are not a Harry Potter fan, I’d give this a pass. If you are a fan – read the book to about three quarters through and refresh your mind as to the sequence of events and the motivation behind the actions of the characters.
M