Caught the Snitch

Went to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire yesterday, in IMAX. After the inital shock of not having the 3D glasses that I was supplied at my last IMAX experience (I got over it once I realized they did not rip us off, it was a different machine) I hunkered down and enjoyed the movie. It was not done too shabbily, and Daniel Radcliffe was better then I expected. Although major points in the story were cut from the movie, as an independant entity it stood well. Miranda Richardson was particularly good as Rita Skeeter, giving the impression of really relishing the role. And Ralph Fiennes, well, Ralph delivered the goods. It wqs quite surprising to see Daniel holding his own against him, and it leads me to think that perhaps Radcliffe may be able to break out of the Potter role successfully once he needs to, unlike Mark Hamill or Christopher Reeve. Emma Watson, as the previews indicated, looked good, expecially in 3D, but her character was too diluted, spending most of the time running around doe-eyed and girly instead of self-confident and inquisitive like Hermione in the novels. That was, however, more of an editing fault than any fault on the part of Emma. Perhaps more of Rita Skeeter would have been beneficial, both for the character development of Hermione and more screen-time for Miranda Richardson. Michael Gambon as Dumbledore showed all of the wise wizard with none of the father figure. As it played out, though, it wasn't half-bad, and some parts were amazing, like the first Triwizard task. And Katie Leung looked much better on screen than her publicity photos. Cho, I can imagine being the girl of Harry's dreams. Katie, not so much. Ah, the wonders of makeup.
The next movie should garner at least an Oscar nomination for Alan Rickman. Though he barely had any screen time in this movie, the one scene Harry had with Snape was excellent. We shall see.    ¶ 4:15 PM