Mediocre Movie Club Movie Reviews

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

9/22/2015

B
2.94

Goblet of Fire’s place as the transition from children’s story to the more mature young adult themes gives it a special place in the series - Phil
These kids are all so dorky, and their false, forced enthusiasm makes them unlikable - Jon
Goblet is probably the movie that failed the most to reach the quality of the book - Sean

Initial Review by Phil

“Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” is definitely an odd movie for this group, as we tend to lean toward things that are a bit more obscure. I imagine that a lot of people are going to blast through this review with just a few sentences, as I think most of us have formed our opinions on this franchise long ago. However, even though Ashli probably picked this one b/c it was the only one streaming, she picked the right one to have a conversation about. It’s easier to talk about where these movies fit in with regard to the series as opposed to stand-alone (more on that in a bit), and Goblet of Fire’s place as the transition from children’s story to the more mature young adult themes gives it a special place in the series.

Just for starters, even if you don’t like the HP franchise, you can’t help but respect it. Very few movie franchises are consistently of a high quality. Just look at some superhero franchises. Spiderman 3 is just bad. X-Men: The Last Stand is an abomination. Blade Trinity…. Anyway, that could hit a soft spot for some here. Numerous franchises ebb and flow in quality, even when all the same people are involved. (Godfather? Matrix?) Somehow, HP has gone through multiple directors and screenwriters, yet in eight movies, the lowest RT score is a 79% (Order of the Phoenix). Say what you want about this franchise, but that is damn impressive. Near the end of its run, I was never nervous that I was going to waste my time going to an HP movie at midnight (not by my choice), b/c they were all good.

Goblet of Fire stands out as an important step in this franchise as it is the first one to not end in a necessarily happy way. In fact, for a “kids movie,” the ending is bleak as shit. Harry has successfully thwarted Voldemort in the first two entries of the series, but this meeting sees him barely escape with his life while also getting his friend Cedric killed. I might be wrong, but Cedric might be the first “good guy” killed in the HP universe. This was a pivotal moment for the franchise, proving that, sometimes, the good guys don’t win, they just live to fight another day. This would be a pretty run-of-the-mill series if we just followed the same formula from Sorcerer’s Stone and Chamber of Secrets, but Goblet of Fire changes all that and launches us into the real story of the franchise.

Beyond that, Goblet of Fire is similar to other entries of the series in that it touches on more base emotional issues that would speak to a teenage audience. It’s a theme that is constantly touched on in the series: even though we’re dealing with a group of gifted wizard teenagers, they’re still typical kids. We have the subplot of Ron’s jealousy of Harry getting selected for the tournament and the awkward Ron/Hermione relationship beginning to take form. Ron gets the most “human” material this time around, which probably isn’t good as Rupert Grint is the weakest actor of the three main protagonists. The relationship stuff works pretty well, but the jealousy subplot feels a little forced given the overarching story and who Harry is in this world. Speaking of Harry, this is probably his weakest movie in the series. Daniel Radcliffe is not given a whole lot interesting to do this time around, giving the bulk of the spotlight in the down scenes to Ron & Hermione. There are other nice moments that are relatable to some, such as the level of embarrassment Ron has for his Yule Ball getup (I avoided anything like this in my youth; also, I still really hate the Yule Ball scene).

HP movies always have good setpieces, but Goblet of Fire’s are some of the weaker entrants into the series. The first Tournament trial with the dragons is a great opener, but the scale of the remaining two leave something to be desired. Likewise, the final showdown between Harry and Voldemort is one of the weaker final battles, but the exchange between Ralph Fiennes and Daniel Radcliffe is well-done as usual. This is the first movie in the series with Fiennes, and is big introduction to the series is both impressive and “terrifying” for a movie in this genre. Fiennes gets off some good lines and plays the intimidating all-powerful lord of darkness well.

All the HP movies are good, but Goblet of Fire is one of the more special entries. It ushered in a new tone and era for the series, a world where not everyone who should live happily ever after necessarily did. It definitely has its weaknesses in relation to the other movies, but it’s understandable why it’s considered in the upper echelon of HP movies.

+ Brings Harry Potter out of the “happily ever after” era into a more adult and interesting series

+ Ralph Fiennes is great in his Voldemort debut

+ Solid acting in the downtime captures typical teenage angst

- Ron heavy

- Setpieces leave something to be desired in the context of the series as a whole

Grade: B+

16 Comments

Phil

9/24/2015 01:10:51 pm

If we don't get any reviews, I'm just gonna start talking to myself

Cooker

9/24/2015 03:56:32 pm

Ah, yes, Goblet of Fire. My favorite of the Potter series which led to probably my favorite spoof (so far) in Harry Putter and the Flaming Grail. Goblet is the film in the series where shit starts going down, it starts getting dark and changes the tone for the rest of the movies. In Sorcerer’s Stone you wrap things up with a bunch of kids cheering that they won the House Cup. By the end of the saga, no one gives a shit about “points.” It’s a full-out war between good and evil. The return of “He Who Must Not be Named,” (fuck it, Voldemort) at the end of Goblet truly introduces this new Potter tone. We see a good guy die, which I believe is the first aside from flashbacks of the murder of Harry’s parents. Cedric Diggory went on to film the Twilight series so no loss for Robert Pattinson for an early Potter dismissal. And this is followed up by the deaths of several other good guys throughout the series, definitely something I liked about Potter over Lord of the Rings. How can nine people go on a dangerous quest, battle outnumbered multiple times and only have one die over the course of three films? Poor, Sean Bean.
In year four, the students, who yes are still kids, also start going through more of the typical adolescent problems. You actually feel concern that the friends are arguing and have kind of turned on each other, unlike the Harry Putter series where they don’t really like each other from the get-go and kind of just tolerate one another. Ron is jealous of Harry and Krum and has a thing for Fleur (who, doesn’t she marry one of his older “barely in the series” brothers? Bill, maybe). They have a Yule Ball and go through the awkward “dating/crush” phase. Harry likes Cho Chang (who he keeps calling Chun Li despite being named Jo Bling in my Harry Putter series), who likes Cedric… Typical adolescent stuff.
Going back to the “turning dark” point. I liked the idea of seeing familiar tactics used by the good guys being used by the villains. We all chuckled in Chamber of Secrets when Hermione brewed the Polyjuice potion so they could interrogate Draco. Hermione turned into a mutant cat. Fun times. But here we see a villainous wizard use the Polyjuice potion to take over the identity of one of the good guys. It’s revealed in the end that the character was an imposter the entire film. Clever use of adapting previous source material.
I could go on, but I know delving further into the world of Harry Potter will make me want to proceed with filming the Harry Putter series, and there’s just no time in my current agenda for the Half-Black Chick and the Mission to Moscow Part 1 and Part 2: Electric Boogaloo. Sad day indeed. My favorite one in the series gets a solid B+

Jon

9/25/2015 04:34:12 am

I don't know what the spread is between those of us who have read the Harry Potter books and those that haven't. I'm firmly on the haven't-and-will-never read side, though I have seen all the movies. I'd call the movies fine-to-boring, as I think they're fatally flawed. This isn't always the case, though despite my previously fond memories of Goblet of Fire, it is the case here. I had this as a B- on the spreadsheet, but that grade is coming down.

To get the basic approach out of the way early, let me address two caveats that I want to dismiss. I understand that this is a movie about witches and wizards, and that it started as a series aimed squarely at children. Those two truths don't have to make this movie and others in the series as silly and dumbed-down and plot-hole-ridden as they are.

On the first point, the magic inherent to the series is portrayed in the most corny fashion imaginable. Waving wands, saying spells, it all inspires pity for the actors who have to say these lines. That aside, no matter how magical the world is, the characters and events at least have to take place in a recognizable universe where people are mostly people. I think all too often, the size of the wizarding world is poorly communicated and character is secondary to plot, so I have a hard time buying into the world.

Second, I've talked before about my rejection of the idea of movies for children. Again, there are too many examples of movies that appeal to adults and children on all levels. Two animated, G/PG rated movies are in my all-time top 50. If those movies can do it, then they blow the curve for everyone, including movies that might not even take universal appeal into consideration. Harry Potter, especially in the first two movies, has set the bar insultingly low. The mugging and over-expository dialogue and spectacle with no substance that mark that kind of movie are abundant in those entries, and counter to my memory of Goblet of Fire, are abundant here, too.

The lightness of Goblet of Fire is what bored me the most. Mike Newell goes the Chris Colombus route instead of the Cuaron route for 90% of the very long running time. The biggest agitator is the mood of the general school populace. These kids are all so dorky, and their false, forced enthusiasm makes them unlikable. They clap for everything, make corny jokes, and have little to no rapport with each other. Everyone's lack of chemistry doesn't stop them from being annoyingly happy all the time. There's also the issue of believable reactions to things. Explorers had the problem of its characters not demonstrating enough awe at their world. Goblet of Fire has the opposite problem. These kids can and do perform magic. Their overreaction at spells and modes of transportation is not endearing. It's subbing in audience reaction for character reaction. A viewer new to the series, likely a small child, should be awed at a chariot pulled by flying horses. The average Hogwarts student should treat this as an average Tuesday. This is what I mean by spectacle without substance. The filmmakers add new things to the world, but the characters live in this world and don't react like the hugely powerful persons they are.

9/25/2015 04:35:13 am

The amateurish acting on display also tilts this towards a kids' movie with low expectations. Barty Crouch Jr is the biggest offender with his tongue flitting in and out of his mouth. That is a character trait so absurd and ostentatious that it makes everyone in the movie dumber. I can't really blame the actor, as that seems baked into a bad character, but it's pure mugging. Rupert Grint, however, I can blame. His character full-on sucks, and Grint does nothing to elevate it. He's just a talentless black cloud that does absolutely nothing in the movie. His short, inconsequential spat with Harry for nonsensical reasons, and his badgering of Hermione for being attractive to other people completely turns me against him. Why is anyone friends with this person? I expected Emma Watson to do the better job, as she's revealed herself to be the best actor of the three main kids, but she's guilty of overselling her facial expressions, too. Exasperated eyebrow raises and sighs galore. Brendan Gleeson's recent work has bumped him up into one of my favorite actors, but he's never been more unlikable here. Tim Roth and Four Rooms crystallized for me how much I dislike big facial acting, and it's aggressively utilized throughout Goblet of Fire. My interpretation is that it's done because the director assumes the audience is dumb children, and therefore wants the actors to make funny faces for the camera. That is completely unnecessary, and I don't give it a pass.

In comparison to the books, which I assume are better with the passage of time, this movie and several others are completely handicapped by the stricture of having to artificially make one movie equal to one school year. Thankfully, this movie dispenses with the awful Hogwarts Cup or whatever it was called, but that restriction is still apparent and forced. This movie is about the Triwizard tournament and Voldemort's plot to use it to get to Harry. Fine, that sounds like a self-contained story, but because the series has decided that it has to include as much of these books as possible, they stretch that from its manageable basics to an unmanageable year. Why does so much time have to go by between the dragon test and the mermaid test? So the viewer gets the privilege of hearing a rock band sing about magic. This movie should have taken place over a month, maximum, and therefore have been 45 minutes shorter. The regular-high-school slash wizards-are-just-like-us phase of the movie is so completely disconnected from what is actually at stake.

Here we come to stakes, my favorite bugaboo. The Triwizard tournament seems a fine thing to structure a movie around. Teen competition is universal, and with magic thrown in, what could go wrong? The dissonance comes from how dangerous the tournament is, especially compared to the reward. Have there been previous years when eager teenagers crowded into a wizard arena, only to watch one of their classmates get eaten alive by a dragon? What if Harry was unable to save the useless French girl's sister? Would her parents have been able to sue Hogwarts for negligence, as their child was kidnapped by mermaids and left to drown, while hundreds of people cheered from the surface? Why would anyone do this when the reward is just a trophy with WIZ awkwardly displayed front and center? Is that worth your potential death, or the potential death of your close friends or family?

The stakes are always life and death throughout the tournament, but the judges regularly change the rules and just poorly structure the games. The first two events have no effect on the final one, which is simply a race through a maze. None. The French girl fails the mermaid test, but is still eligible to win the maze if she touches the trophy first. Why did she suffer no penalty for leaving her sister to die? On a side note, it must be said that the French girl is made comically inept compared to her competitors. Shouldn't magic be a physical equalizer between the sexes, and if so, why is she so useless? Harry gets second place in the mermaid test despite coming in last because of moral fiber? If I'm Krum, I'm pissed. That moral fiber, in going back for Diggory at the end, is what gets Diggory killed, by the way, so fuck your condescending sense of fair play, Potter.

Sean

9/26/2015 08:16:22 pm

The first two events give you a head start to the maze like in Supermarket Sweep

9/25/2015 04:35:47 am

I haven't even gotten into my general skepticism of the franchise, with its nonstop deus ex machina rescues and fundamental miscalculation of Harry as the main character, when he's often the least interesting person in the room. The books should never have been movies. A seven season BBC series, with the BBC's short-episode seasons, would've served the series so much better. The movies mostly make themselves valuable by bringing great English actors into the mainstream, and for Ralph Fiennes' admittedly iconic portrayal of Voldemort. That guy's good at villains. I could talk more about the series, as I'm interested in it and its lore. I just think that even as overstuffed so many of the movies are, the darker lore is still pretty interesting. Maybe the next series set in the same universe will be better.

For Goblet of Fire, it's a badly paced, clumsily plotted trifle that badly miscommunicates motivations. It also looks consistently great, and introduces series MVP Ralph Fiennes. I was annoyed, but not hateful towards this outing. I think that original B- is based solely on the strong climax in the graveyard. When taking the rest of the film into consideration, it falls to a weak C.

9/25/2015 10:49:11 am

First off, here's why they were made into movies - http://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=harrypotter.htm

Anyway...

Really good review from the outsider perspective for the HP series. I will say that I come from a slightly more educated background on this series. I've watched every movie with Anna, and she knows this world inside and out. So if I do have a question, she can always answer it and then usually end it with "they go way deeper into this in the book." I have to admit, I've forgotten how lost I was in some of these movies the first time I watched them, having zero context of the world.

And that's what makes these movies so hard to review. Very few are self-contained stories. The first one might be it. It's like evaluating an MCU movie at this point - nearly impossible to judge on its own. Judging a movie like this on its own is a little unfair, b/c it's not asking to be judged on its own. I always disagree with judging a movie on terms that are not congruent with the creators' intentions. Goblet of Fire was never meant to be consumed as a standalone, so juding the merits of a self-contained story feels pointless.

Ok, quick hits on some other issues...

- There are a handful of characters with exaggerated gestures for sure - thank God for your sake we don't have Helena Bonham Carter flittering about like a goofball to help drag that grade down further. It's part of the series, and it's one of those things you either accept and move on or dislike and with anger. I am fine with either stance.

- We agree on Rupert Grint, who only gets more loathsome if you ask me. Emma Watson & Daniel Radcliffe turn in better performances later on. I did almost go into Harry being the most boring character in his world, but I stopped short. He's perfect to a fault.

- I do feel bad for the actors waving wands around like goofs on a green screen. It has to feel odd. I especially thought this at the end of Order of the Phoenix.

- I don't know if I agree with your thoughts on the kids' reactions to things in this world. Keep in mind that Harry was not brought up in this world, so his reactions can be genuine - we're also being introduced to this world with him. As for the kids' surprise at a spell and what not, I think it's similar to sports. We've seen pretty much everything, but we still get excited when we see a dunk in a basketball game. How is that any different?

- Fair points about the Triwizard Tournament, but I think placing did affect when people got to start in the hedge maze, so there was some effect from the first two events. Granted, it's easy to miss the first watch or two (like a ton of other stuff in these movies if you aren't giving them your undivided attention). As for stakes, the best way I compared it was an Olympic Gold Medal. I personally do not understand athletes killing themselves for a solid decade to get one shot at a gold medal. They care though, so I don't need to.

9/26/2015 08:34:00 pm

I'm writing in the car while waiting on Mindy and based on memory.

I have read the books but I watched the
Movies first. Goblet is probably the movie that failed the most to reach the quality of the book. That said its still in the B range.

Personal HP power rankings (movies)
HalfBlood Prince
Deathly Hallows 2
deathly Hallows 1-lots of slow tents in the forest time but the best emotional acting of the series
Order of Phoenix- despite Umbridge being over the top awful stupid annoying unlike able
Goblet
Azkiban
Chamber of secrets
Sorcerers stone

Someone check my spreadsheet grades to make sure that jibes.

What I disagree with Jon on with the expressions and the children hate- This series is not just for children but it's meant to be enjoyed through the wonderment of the eyes of a child. Some of
These kids haven't experienced magic coming from a Muggle
World. Ever the kids living in magical households have not performed any of these spells. Many don't show any magical abilities in early childhood and families fear they
Won't get invited To Hogwarts. There's also that whole ban on practicing magic outside of school until you're of age. That is strictly regulated. So these kids have that wonder look that a kid basically has when he learns how to ride a bike or hit a baseball every day. That Rowling develops this world as a setting for a pretty strong good vs evil revenge story spanning 7 years is ok in my book. I will definitely be watching the spinoff magical beasts movie when it's out.

Sorry I didn't watch this Week so I
Went whole series on the review.
B/b+ for
goblet

9/26/2015 09:21:42 pm

Series rankings

Order of the Phoenix
Deathly Hallows Part 2
Azkaban
Goblet of Fire
Half-Blood Prince
Deathly Hallows Part 1
Chamber of Secrets
Sorcerer's Stone

9/26/2015 09:29:10 pm

Is that stuff about not getting invited to Hogwarts in the movies at all? That's an interesting part of the world, but the movies are so annotated that I think they aren't able to even consider it.

The child-like awe was fine in the first movie. It's doesn't seem at all like how teenagers would act by year four.

9/27/2015 11:13:26 am

I think it's vaguely mentioned about Nevilles grandma being worried about him. It's probably more noticeable in muggle born families with one kid going to Hogwarts and one not- Harry's mom and aunt, the books did hit more on that jealousy so you're right it's more of a book thing

Bryan

9/27/2015 04:56:12 pm

Stinkin library DVD kept skipping. I enjoy Phil and Sean's review's a lot - I'll just borrow from them.

This brings Harry Potter out of the “happily ever after” era into a more adult and interesting series. This series is not just for children but it's meant to be enjoyed through the wonderment of the eyes of a child.

B+

Shane

9/30/2015 03:03:42 pm

Cedric Diggory
Handsome, but had to die off
Added some real stakes

B+

Lane

10/4/2015 11:36:59 pm

I didn't care for the HP that much.

Grade: B-

10/5/2015 10:50:29 am

Per Shane's suggestion - my review in limerick form:

There once was a boy named Potter,
in a film about a Goblet of Fire (say that with a Southern accent and it rhymes),
the film was okay,
more like a Victorian play,
I stayed up too late watching it so I'm tired.

Drew

11/1/2015 06:11:00 pm

Not a great Harry Potter fan.

Liked the non happy ending.

Grade: B-

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Leave a Reply.

Authors

Categories

Archives