Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

The Harry Potter films have almost no chance of living up to the books. They don’t have the depth, they don’t have the length, and they don’t have any room for the viewer to imagine things in their own way. But, you know, that’s part of their charm. They require minimal effort, only 2-3 hours of your time, and still let you in on the coolest trend around. Plus, you can watch them over and over far easier than you can read the book over and over. Were you so inclined.
The first two Harry Potter movies were, relatively, crap. They were stories for kids, and the effects basically sucked. The third movie changed directors and got a little darker. But this movie, the fourth one, finally gets it right. True, the book is something like 734 pages long (the audio book is something like 19 hours long) and the movie is only 160 minutes, but it gets all the essential elements. It’s rated PG-13 (finally) and yet one of my few complaints would be that it wasn’t quite terrifying enough.
Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of scary moments. Sitting here right now I can think of at least three. What I’m saying is that the 4-8 year olds in the theater with me weren’t crying. They should have been. Maybe they’re not old enough to get it yet, or maybe having grown up with the war on terror has made them immune to such things. But I feel like reading the book was scary. Watching the movie should be at least that scary. Some of the most important lines (in my humble opinion) were glossed over quite lightly (“everything’s going to change now, isn’t it?”), lessening the sense of impending DOOM that lingered over the book. But, then again, that’s Hollywood for you.
As a whole, though, this movie was great. It didn’t feel long at all, it didn’t feel slow at all, there were no bad effects that really stick out (unlike that horrible phoenix and that damn house elf from the other movies), and the only truly uncomfortable moment involved Harry in a bubble bath with Moaning Myrtle. Yeah. See what I mean? It even sounds uncomfortable.
I could go off on totally unrelated tangents about why Harry is by far the least interesting character in the films, if not in the books, but I won’t. Suffice it to say that I love Ron, Hermione might turn out to be a good actress after all, Fred and George were up there in terms of amusement, Professor McGonagall had some good lines, Cedric was fairly attractive, and Neville… was really great. Yeah, I wasn’t expecting that one either.
One pet peeve though. With all of their amazing special effects, with the flying horses, and the fire-breathing dragons, and the whatever else there is, why can’t they make Harry’s eyes the right color? Aren’t they supposed to be bright green? Well, they’re blue. And Dumbledore’s eyes? Aren’t they supposed to be BRIGHT blue? Well, they’re not. Also, (ok, two pet peeves, but this one is specific to this movie), what’s up with the foam-looking stuff splurting out of Harry’s wand in the main fight scene? (I was going to say in the climax, but that just sounded dirty.) It looks like, well, it looks like foam, not magic. And it’s weird. But that was my only issue with the special effects. In 2.5 hours that’s pretty impressive.
Ok, so, well, go see it. And if you don’t love it at least you’ll know what everyone is talking about.