Harry Potter & GOF Movie

Last night I went to see the new Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire movie in IMAX, at the Metreon in San Francisco. I was suppose to have tickets waiting for me, and luckily for me I showed up early and after a few calls and emails I managed to get them.

Kristin and I got to go in first (around 6:15 pm) and pick the best seats in the house. I am still not sure how the general public gets invited to these events, but the theater was not completely filled up. The movie started at 7pm, to a lot of applause and excitement, with the scene from the riddle house. It was great to see it on such a huge screen. I knew going in that the movie would have to cut out a lot from the book, but I was surprised to see what they focused on and/or left out. The entire Quidditch World Cup match was not shown at all... for example.

Now I admit that I would have prefer to see a movie version of the book, but also realized that was impossible. What I hoped for instead was a great movie with many of elements of the book still intact. In the end, I am not sure what the movie was about... The book had been about who was trying to kill Harry, how he had been entered in the Tri-wizard tournament, and if he would survive? And the movie, I guess, was just about the tournament.

The scenes that were in the movie looked wonderful - there was plenty of added action scenes (a few too many if you ask me), and so the movie goes by very quickly. Unfortunately, if you had not read the books I am not sure if you had any idea what was going on. So many elements of the movie referred to much longer back-stories provide by the book that without them I suspect the viewer would probably be completely lost.

At the end of the movie, there was only a smattering of applause as many of the audience simply got up and left, or clapped before the movie was over as they were not sure when it had really ended. This was not a good sign, in my opinion, after such a huge buildup. Overall I would give the movie a "C" grade (or for those familiar with the "little man" rating system a man seated), and wished it had a done a better job of pulling a more coherent story from such a wonderful book.