Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
(2005)
Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson,
Rupert Grint
Director: Mike Newell
Opening Date: Nov 18, 2005
There seems to be no end to Pottermania: 2005 sees the
release of the fourth big screen Harry Potter movie as well as the
publication of the much anticipated sixth book by author J.K. Rowling
(titled Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which sounds like
something out of a treatise on the Aryan race or something).
However, with the Harry Potter movies becoming an
almost annual institution, the trick is to keep things fresh I suppose.
Let’s be honest here: the novels do follow a kind of pattern here. They
always kick off with Harry at his abusive muggle “adoptive parents” and
somewhere along the line there’ll be a quidditch match and so forth.
So the creative personnel keep being shuffled round.
The first two movies had Chris (Gremlins,
Mrs. Doubtfire) Columbus as director whilst the third movie had Y
Tu Mamá También director Alfonso Cuarón. (The main cast stayed more or
less the same though).
The fourth instalment has Mike Newell of Four
Weddings and a Funeral fame in the director’s chair.
One question remains: as the books being adopted for
the screen get thicker and thicker, will the movies get longer and longer?
Really testing the endurance of a generation turned into attention deficit
syndrome cases by computer games and TV, the movies each clocked in at
almost two and a half hours each: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
(2001) was 142 minutes long, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
(2002) a whopping 161 minutes and Harry Potter
and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) was 141 minutes.
Goblet is thicker than the previous books which
have been made into films. Does that mean that it will be even longer than
them? Are talking a new Lord of the Rings sore
butt fest here? (The three Rings movies clocked in at 165, 179 and
200 minutes each respectively.)
Don’t get me wrong here: the Potter books are great
page-turning entertainment and I wished they were around when I was a kid
(instead kids my age had to make do with The Hardy Boys!), but I do kinda
feel sorry for the kids who have to read the past few doorstops of novels.
After all, these are just books intended for children,
aren’t they?
Note: They’d better get a move on with these movies,
because the three kids playing Harry and his pals are sure growing up
quickly judging from the publicity photos on this page!
Continue
Plot Summary
It's the summer holidays before
Harry's fourth year in Hogwarts. The Weasley family invites Harry to stay
with them for the last two weeks of the holidays and accompany them to the
crowning event of the summer: The Quidditch World Cup Final between
Ireland and Bulgaria. Everything could be so great, if there weren't
mysterious events taking place in the magic world, foreshadowing the
comeback of the evil Lord Voldemort. Meanwhile Hogwarts is looking forward
for another great event: The Triwizard Tournament, an international magic
competition between Hogwarts and two foreign schools: Beauxbatons and
Durmstrang. All students being over 17 are allowed to apply and a goblet
of fire picks a champion from each school who will fight the dangerous
competition. To everybody's surprise, the goblet of fire picks four
champions: Fleur Delacour for Beauxbatons, Viktor Krum for Durmstrang,
Cedric Diggory for Hogwarts and, to everybody's surprise, Harry Potter!
Facing his new, unpleasant popularity, a bad discussion with Ron, his
first love and many dangers, Harry takes the challenge and stands up to
fight: For his school, against the evil and always with Lord Voldemort in
mind who wants to kill Harry and to rise to new power again.
