Daniel Radcliffe returns as Harry, looking a little shaggier and almost ready to shave. Hermione’s (Emma Watson) physical changes are subtler, but it’s her character’s mature – not just smart – responses that carry her. Ron (Rupert Grint) and brothers Fred (James Phelps) and George (Oliver Phelps), who finally get to show some real personality, sport long, teenage red hair and plenty of mischievous attitude. In fact, Gred and Feorge are the best examples of a welcome change by Newell and screenwriter Steve Kloves in film four: most of the supporting characters have running bits. Fred and George sell trinkets and gadgets at the many large events depicted while spouting one-liners; caretaker Filch fires off cannons at inopportune moments; the diminuitive Professor Flitwick (Warwick Davis) conducts music here and there; and Snape (Alan Rickman) gets to smash heads in a classroom scene. Some of these routines, particularly the ones involving Neville Longbottom (Matthew Lewis), are important to the plot, which makes you have to pay attention to all of them. Newell packs an awful lot of storytelling into every movie frame. This film should stand up well to repeat viewings.
The story involves Harry’s reluctant participation in the Triwizard Tournament against Cedric Diggory (Robert Pattinson) of Hogwarts, Fleur Delacour (Clémence Poésy) of the all-girls Beauxbatons School and Victor Krum (Staninslav Ianeski) of the all-boys Durmstrang Academy. The latter two champions are relegated to nearly action-star status as neither speaks much, but does plenty. Cedric smiles charmingly a lot amid bunches of adoring students, but is also given the text to develop a character, which is critical to the payoff at the film’s end.
Noteworthy is the aggressive approach in the performances of the primary professors, especially Michael Gambon as Dumbledore and Brendan Gleeson as Mad Eye Moody. His transforming of Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton) into a ferret is one of the film’s comic highlights. Overall, the comedy is allowed to pop out frequently, nicely contrasting the complex story. In two of the film’s most original scenes Sirius Black’s face appears, muppetlike, as part of the very embers during a fireplace chat with Harry and a horny Moaning Myrtle (Shirley Henderson) shares a bubble bath with our hero while a stainglass mermaid looks on.
A number of events seem to have suffered severe editing room surgeries (like the Quidditch World Cup), but Harry’s battle with a dragon, the Yule Ball (Shefali Chowdhury and Afshan Azad as the Patil sisters nearly steal the scenes), and a thrilling, almost dialogue-free underwater sequence, help drive the film. The prologue involving Frank Bryce the gardener (Eric Sykes) and his discovery of the story’s villains, is derived quite faithfully from the book and repeats throughout the film, climaxing with the rebirth of Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) as a kingly, rather than only sinister, Dark Lord. The events in the graveyard are powerfully moving and one of the reasons this film rises above its predecessors in the series.
Final note:Although the rumor was that Daniel Radcliffe’s favorite band Franz Ferdinand would appear in the Yule Ball sequence, it’s actually members of Pulp and Radiohead.
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