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By
WAYNE KLEIN
The Harry Potter films have
continued to improve with each film. The first two
with their generic, flat direction by Chris
Columbus captured the story of the books without
capturing the flavor—it was like eating a blandly
seasoned steak while the meat was there the meal
wasn't exactly memorable. With "The Prisoner of
Azkaban" Columbus was gone replaced by a real
director who managed to imbue the film with a
sense of style. The fourth film although more
episodic than the previous three continues the
movement towards a more visually memorable film.
Film is, after all, about visual narrative as much
as it is about the story itself. The fourth film
depends much more on the knowledge of the readers
of the book to fill in the background and gaps in
the story and, from that perspective, Steve Kloves
screenplay is a failure. Nevertheless, Potter fans
will be pleased with the way the story is told
even if those who haven't followed the books will
be forgiven for occasionally scratching their
heads and wondering about certain story elements
that seem to be missing. The focus on the story
here should have been less on remaining faithful
on a page-by-page basis to pivotal scenes and more
on the trio of characters that anchor the Potter
saga—Harry, Hermione and Ron. Hermione is reduced
to a bitchy sidebar as is Ron. Nothing of
consequence happens to either of these two
characters. It's as if we're being presented with
a "Cliff notes" version of the Potter book without
any sense of continuity (in fact the film that
this most closely resembles in terms of structure
is the disjointed narrative of Kubrick's "2001: A
Space Odyssey" but then that covers everything
from the evolution of man from ape to traveling in
space). "Goblet of Fire" isn't a bad film just a
miniature version of the book without the chance
to breathe and allow natural character development
to occur over time. Still, the film isn't without
its charms and Potter fans will be pleased with
the adaptation.
"Harry" isn't quite as magical in this anamorphic
transfer from Warner as it would be. . While I
would have liked to see better detail and
crispness in the transfer, overall the look of the
film is quite pleasing. The colors are nicely
reproduced although the lack of contrast impacts
the amount of detail visible in the film. The 5.1
transfer sounds quite good with nice use of
directional sound and dialogue comes across crisp
and clear.
The second disc has the extras. Sadly there's no
commentary track from director Mike Newell or
screenwriter Steve Kloves. It would have been
interesting to hear about some of the directions
in the screenplay that could have been taken but
weren't. "Harry and the Horntail: The First Task"
is a featurette on the staging and creation of
that sequence. "Meet the Champions" offers a
glimpse behind the curtain focusing on the actors
that play the Triwizard Champions. "In Too Deep:
The Second Task" focuses on the second Triwizard
challenge where Harry and his competitors must
swim in hazardous waters to rescue their friends.
"The Maze: The Third Task" is the shortest of the
featurettes running just under 7 minutes. This
brisk featurette focuses on the challenges in
creating the maze sequence in the film. "He Who
Must Not Be Named" discusses Lord Voldemort and
Ralph Fiennes the actor who plays him. "Preparing
for the Yule Ball" shows that many of the actors
in the film have two left feet. "Conversations
with the Cast" is a half hour of interviews with
the stars of the film discussing the challenges of
making the fourth Potter film. "Hogwarts Castle"
rounds out the featurettes giving us inside
information on the marvelous sets and shooting the
film. We also get deleted scenes that should have
been reintegrated into the film much as Peter
Jackson did with the "Lord of the Rings" films. It
would have improved the film dramatically. We also
get the original theatrical trailer, DVD-ROM
content and a pair of games which like the first
set for the other films are pretty dismal.
"The Goblet of Fire" tends to be too literal in
translating the book to film. In that regard the
film is at least as pedestrian as the first two
installments. Visually though the film continues
to be interesting with fine performances from the
cast as a highlight here. "The Prisoner of
Azkaban" the predecessor in this film series
demonstrated that you could be true to the spirit
of the book and create a film every bit as
memorable as the book without being literal. While
I wasn't disappointed with "Goblet of Fire" I
found it to be too episodic and almost fragmented
compared to the previous films. The direction on
the whole is an improvement over Chris Columbus'
generic approach to the material but doesn't quite
match the inspired direction for "Azkaban." |
