Don't expect to leave happy

As you know, I saw Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire this weekend. I don't know what else to say about that, so now I'm going to tell you about it. If you haven't read the book and want to, stop reading now, because I'm assuming everyone knows what happens...and if you haven't read the book and want to....WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR????? Get off your duff and read the thing! Do NOT see the movie! READ THE BOOK!

The movie starts exactly like the book did, in dusty old mansion near a spooky graveyard, with tombstones bearing Tom Riddle's (You-Know-Who's father) name and the names of his parents. Those of us who read the book know why these people are no longer among the living. Inside the house, there is an additional person than there was in the book, but the movie needed to do that in order to compress the story. Understandable, and it works. Frank Bryce snuffs it, and Harry wakes up, thinking it was all a dream.

The Quidditch World Cup was fun. Ginny has a few lines, and they really show her slow development into the girl we know and love in Book 6. Then the chaos begins, and the Death-Eaters start marching. And chaos it is! It's a very frightening sequence, and I really felt...nervous...for the first time in a Harry Potter movie. The third movie has an overall sense of foreboding, but I was never really "scared." This fourth movie really makes you nervous.

The new teacher, Mad-Eye, makes you nervous too. I think that might be because he's always nervous. He even curses the enchanted ceiling in the Great Hall in a funny moment. One thing I did miss though, was him always saying "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" But the movie did keep in a scene where Moody shows Malfoy what a ferrett he really is.

The two international schools of magic arrive at Hogwarts in very nice sequences - like Mr. Weasly says, "When we all get together, we can't help but show off." In a slight change from the book, Beauxbatons is a girls school and Durmstrang is a boys school. It works, and is cool. I gotta add, it's neat to see the characters we know and love interact with new folks - not just the one new teacher here and there.

Fred and George FINALLY get the chance to be Fred and George! Oh, it's so refreshing to see them act like they do. They are mischief-makers, and they do it in this one. For those curious, they do take the aging potion, and the age-line Dumbledore put around the Goblet does work on them....and Sirious is in the movie, but just in the fire, and that was good enough for me.

The Yule-Ball was perfect; the dancing was elegant and Ron and Hermione did have their row at the end of it, and I felt so bad for her. The tasks were all amazing. I swear that dragin was real. I don't know where they found a real dragon to act in a movie, but good lord! That this was real. The Black Lake was neat, and scary, and "zee grindylows" were very cool. The maze. The maze was impressive. No Blast-Ended Skrewts or anything, but I sat in a theater full of people, and a lot of them jumped in the maze sequence.

Then we get to the graveyard, back where the whole thing started. Wormtail comes out and gets right to work. Cedric is no more. He does the re-birthing spell in its entirety. Bone from the father, flesh from the servant, blood from the enemy. Arm-slicing and all. It's all there. And so is You-Know-Who. Scary. Great bad guy.

I also think a lot of the people I saw the movie with hadn't read the book, because when Lucious was unmasked, a lot of people gasped.

The wands connected, Harry saw his parents, and Cedric, who asks Harry to take his body back. Harry does. And they land back at Hogwarts, where no one realizes what wrong. They are all clapping and celebrating. Then, slowly, the realization comes over the crowd that something has gone horribly, irrevocably wrong. Harry sobs, the students stand silent, Cedric's dad runs out of the crowd and just wails, clutching his son, taken early from him by the whim of a madman. Seeing it was actually worse than reading it. People around me cried.

At the end of the movie come two lines that have come to define the Harry Potter series since the fourth book came out: "Everything's going to change now." "Dark times lie ahead. Soon we will all have to make the choice between what's right and what's easy." The Dark Mark has been cast, and it's not going to get any easier for Harry.

This movie was fantastic. Best HP movie yet. They did cut a lot, but they told they story, and that's what's important. I give it a 10 or **** or an A+ or whatever your grading system is. Just don't expect to leave the theater incredibly happy. That's not going to happen in a Harry Potter movie anymore. Not until number 7 at least.