Letterboxd — Your life in film

Good, but not as good as the last 2 films were. But then again, it's tough to beat Prisoner of Azkaban and Goblet of Fire.

Imelda Staunton, though. She's fucking frightening in this film. More scary than Ralph Fiennes, and he's Voldemort!

Harry takes the center stage it seems, more so than the previous films where it was about the ensemble. Radcliffe is up to it, though. Underrated actor.

And Gary Oldman gets to carry some weight in this one.
"Get away from my godson!"

MAN it sucked seeing him go like he did. One shot, BANG, he's dead. Devastating.

Ron and Hermione seemed to be heavily cut out of this story, it seemed. I can't recall too many Ron moments, at least.

I love the way Voldemort sort of haunts this whole movie until he shows up at the end. You hear his voice in every other scene.

And Snape gets to be fleshed out a bit in this one. We learn that Harry's dad was actually a complete asshole in Hogwarts. Tough scene, to see this paragon as he's always described suddenly shown to be a run of the mill bully.

So, solid film, nothing to really complain about. The good thing about this series, is knowing where it ends up, so any drawbacks along the way aren't that big a deal.

Almost tied with Prisoner of Azkaban for best Harry Potter film.

The way this movie made this world SO much bigger, establishing all the different cultures and organizations within.

Characters like Alistor Moody played by Brendan Gleeson, an Auror, a Dark Wizard catcher. He's my favorite character in this series. The Boba Fett of Harry Potter. And Rita Skeeter played by Miranda Richardson, who like Gleeson, steals every scene she's in. A kind of definitive cinematic journalist, barely getting answers to her questions and just writing whatever comes to her mind.

The different schools from different parts of the world. When this series started, I assumed the world only went as far as England. To see that there are several Hogwarts style schools over the world just blew my mind. And made the world seem that much bigger.

The idea of a Quidditch World Cup. That scene where the teams arrive, the Irish team, the players led by this old guy on the field, not a word but you know what the team's about. And sending up a spectral leprechaun was great.

And then there's things this film did that the other films didn't. For instance, the dragons. The best dragons in movie history are in this series. And we get a fantastic action scene involving Harry Potter being chased by one on his broom stick. A 2nd act sequence, too. Most other films would end with that as their climax.

And of course there's the best part of this movie. In the middle of this Triwizard Tournament, right when we're into it at the end of it. BOOM! We're taken away from it and HE shows up. You knew he was going to be in this movie, but the tournament made you forget for a while.

Voldemort finally shows up, not an apparition, not a spirit, the real deal. And Ralph Fiennes just knocks it out of the park. He tops all expectations of this character they've been talking about for the last 3 films. That he had a malevolent joy to his evil just made him scarier to me.

The whole film has this thread about teenager relationships, inviting girls to the prom, the big dance, etc. Then Voldemort shows up and reminds the characters just how pointless all that is in this world.

There's a scene where Cedric Diggory is killed by Voldemort's wand by Wormtail. It doesn't really affect me. But the scene where Harry returns to Hogwarts with his body, and Cedric's father sees him is truly devastating. Up to this point in the series, it's the most devastating moment. Jeff Rawle who plays Cedric's father, Amos, is perfect in that moment. You'd think Rawle actually lost his son in that scene the way he breaks down.

Mike Newell takes over for Alfonso Cuaron, who for whatever reason did not come back, sadly. But Newell surprisingly, at least to me, picked up Cuaron's ball and ran with it. I say it's a shame HE didn't stick around for the rest of the series as well.

I remember when watching this film a 2nd time, I worried that it wouldn't hold up for some reason. It holds up. And like Prisoner of Azkaban was for 2004, Goblet of Fire is one of the Top 10 films of 2005.

Going through the series again. Watching Deathly Hallows Part 1 and 2 last week just made me want to start over again. Because this is a hell of a film series. In terms of number of films and keeping up a high level of quality, I think it is THE best. What else is there that went for 10 years without a slip up?

Philosopher's Stone and Chamber of Secrets were good, but didn't blow me away watching them again. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban did.

The 3rd Harry Potter film. This time, Chris Columbus steps down as director and lets Alfonso Cuaron take over. And by God was that a wise move. Colbumbus is an average director, I'd hope he would admit as much. He's not an effects guy, he's not the guy you get to create a magical world. So while he got the ball rolling on this series, cast the original actors, set the tone, etc. and I will be eternally grateful to him for that, Cuaron makes the first 2 movies look like the kids films they are.

This film stands out for me for a lot of reasons. For one, no Voldemort. He's not trying to come back, his grand army of wizards is never mentioned. There is no epic grand story this time. This time, they stay small and personal. The world is not in danger this time.

It's all the little details they brought to this movie that shoot this movie from being one of the year's good films like the first 2, to one of THE best films of 2004.

I'll just list the parts I liked:

• Azkaban Prison - just the idea of there being so many evil wizards that they had to build a prison for them. This world has laws and crime.

• The monster book IS an actual monster. THAT is genius. And actually scary, in that shot where it's under the bed. I've seen spiders act like that.

• The Dementors - easily my favorite creatures in this whole franchise, maybe other than the dragons. These agents of law, but in the form of shrouds of death. Silent, dropping their surround environment's temperature to freezing cold.

The intro scene to these things on the train. You just see this figure hovering through the car without making a sound, waving it's hand to open the door. Utterly terrifying. The scariest things in this world.

Made all the more scarier that they're supposedly agents of good, rounding up fugitives.

• As with the newspapers and photographs in this world, we see a wanted poster for Sirius Black, in which Black is screaming mad, raving in front of a typical arrest photo backdrop. There's a scene when Harry stares into the image in a newspaper. The camera zooms into Black's eyes, you can feel the rage in them.

It is this moment when I take a step back, pause the movie and ask "I can't believe where this film has taken me. What other film has a moment like this? A guy staring at a newspaper that's staring back at him."

• That fantastic song that plays as we approach Hogwarts Castle. Double Trouble. Using the witch's words from Macbeth. With a choir, led by Warwick Davis, with a few toads as well. Just perfect. Nice and creepy, too.

• Dumbledore, now played by Michael Gambon has a nice moment when he gives a speech about darkness. And he waves his hands to turn out a candle and waves it again to bring the flame back in one shot. THAT was great.

• The Boggart - my favorite creature in this series that only appears in one film. A creature with no form of its own. It simply turns into whatever you're afraid of...... that's messed up.

And so we get a great scene where Prof. Lupin, the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher shows how to defend yourself against a Boggart. You turn it into something funny. The highlight being Longbottom sees Snape, and he turns the Boggart into Snape wearing his grandmother's clothes.

AND a great moment when Lupin stands in front of the Boggart and by relfex, it turns into a full moon, excellent use of foreshadowing there. As Lupin is actually a werewolf.

• A lesson on werewolves, we see a cave painting of 2 men figures and a wolfman figure. Now THAT is how to establish a history in your fantasy.

And Snape's best single line. "Page 394."

• Lupin himself, at first, the least fantastical character in the series. He simply wears a sweater, shirt and tie, he dresses like an ordinary college professor. AND he provides the most first hand backstory on Harry's parents, having grown up with them and as learn later, fought against Voldemort with them. David Thewlis just makes something great out of something minor with that character.

And then of course we learn he's the most fucked up teacher that school's ever had, as he's a werewolf.

• The lack of camp in this entry in the series. There's such a reality brought to this fantasy, which I think makes it the best in the series. There's a moment when the students see a ghost in the school. They just in passing go "Hey, man.". That's such a great little moment. The wonder of Hogwarts is sort of gone, now it's just a school like any other to these kids.

Another great moment is when Harry finds an object from a glass on the stairs. He says to Ron "We need to give this back." Ron just says "I'm not going back." Not in an angry way, just in a way of "I'm not going back up the stairs, man. I got stuff to do." The little kids are now teenagers.

• Ron wakes up rambling about spiders. Telling Harry "Ah, spiders, they want me to tap dance." Harry tells him "Well, you tell those spiders, Ron." In a slightly sarcastic way. Another great moment of reality.

• Hermione has maybe her best moment when she threatens Draco Malfoy with her wand, Draco recoils in horror. When he relaxes, she just punches him right in the face. No spells, no magic, no incantation, just a punch in the face. "That felt good." She says. Such an audience pleasing moment.

• One other thing about the kids is that they are OUT of their school uniforms for the most part in this film. When they're not in class, they just wear 20th century street clothes. Jeans, hoodies, sweaters, etc. Once again, Cuaron just succeeded so well in making this film feel realistic as well as fantastical.

• They also made the great call to film stuff outside in Scotland rather than all studio stuff as previous. The difference is so substantial. And the landscape is just beautiful.

• Hargid's house, he just has this.... THING sitting in an egg. Don't know what it is, never find out, just a thing. Cool!

• Sirius Black - Gary Oldman. This whole movie we're led to believe that Sirius is some sort of mass murderer who worked for Voldemort. He's the villain of this film, we assume. Then we meet him, Oldman in full psycho mode. And then he reveals himself to in fact be a hero of the Voldemort war and best friend to Harry's parents.

Oldman gives a great performance in this film. He has this one great moment where he asks Harry if he'd like to live with him instead of the Dursley's. That's a moment that if tweaked, might have seemed very strange and uncomfortable. Instead, it's one of the more touching moments of the series. "It's just a thought, I'd understand if you didn't want to."

AND he's an Animagus, a wizard who's able to turn themselves into an animal. Sirius turns into a wolf.

• Lupin's a werewolf and JUST when the story seems to be wrapping up in a happy way, the moon comes out. And we get a great werewolf scene, which I was NOT ready for. It was such a surprise.

And it's done so well. We zoom in on Lupin's pupils, zoom out and he's going into wolf-mode.

• And RIGHT when the movie seems to be over... nope, another half hour! We get the film's time travel sequence. A real mindjob. It's so strange, funny and will mess with your head.

And Dumbledore gets the best moment of the film from it. It's apparent he knows that they're time travelling to save Sirius Black. But when they do the job and catch up with the present, Dumbledore turns to them and says "Well?" As in, "How did it go?"
"We did it?"
"Did what? ..... Goodnight." PERFECT moment. Best Dumbledore moment.

• Then the movie comes to a sudden halt with its ending. Freezing on Harry's face as he blazes through the sky on a new broom. Again, Cuaron just knows what he's doing.

This movie should have been up for Best Picture, I think. Astonishing film.