Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
(directed by Mike Newell, screenplay by Steve Kloves, from novel by JK Rowling; 2005)

Goblet of Fire rapidly brews an atmosphere of dark foreboding -- Harry's nightmares, the burned-out camp site, the graveyard -- all are chillingly created, helped along by cgi notches better than the earlier films (the dragon scrabbling for purchase on the tiles of the tower was way more believable than, say, the werewolf transformation that marred Prisoner of Azkaban). And then along comes the Yule Ball, out come the posh frocks, and they all stop to, uh, party...

Which brings me to my main point: I suspect Goblet of Fire was by no means an easy book to adapt. The screenwriter is said to have pruned a lot, but I fear he would have been well advised to have been far more ruthless. The entire competition feels like the device that it is, the Yule ball like out-of-place filler. The film ends up a series of incidents loosely strung together without being energised by any ongoing plot.

Rupert Grint, as Everyman Ron Weasley, seems to be doing the best of the three young leads. Miranda Richardson is wonderful as nosy journalist Rita Skeeter, a real highlight, and Mad-Eye Moody is lovingly created by Brendan Gleeson. Ralph Fiennes as the reincarnated Voldemort, however, feels sadly flat -- though Evil Villain Easily Defeated By Fourteen-year-old Boy After a Spot of Gloating perhaps isn't the most inspiring of roles. David Tennant, in brief glimpses as Evil Sidekick No. 2, seems far more intriguing. Some of the adults on the main cast are so painfully underutilised one has to wonder why they bothered getting out of bed.

All in all, a strange, distended film that will doubtless appeal to Potter fans but did rather little for the as-yet-unconverted.

20 November 2005