HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE (2005) *1/2 I give up. They finally, a few books too late, get around to singing the “Hogwarts Song,” (hoggie-wartie Hogwarts) and they do it closing a throwaway scene, and without emphasis. What the hell are they doing?!! It's the best part of the entire series! They should sing it loudly during every credits, and in the culmination of every major scene, in scat rondos and Brandenburg variations, and melodic metal harmonies, and with hybrid reggae/opera sensibilities. The best part of this book (I haven't read it, but my daughters have told me all about it to the point where I could score highly on a reading comprehension test of any severity) is the House Elf Liberation Front, which is ignored entirely. Instead we get the Ku Klux Klan attacking the Irish at the World Cup, and sexually segregated Bulgarian and French schools (against the more sensible reality of J. K. Rowling's work--I mean, what? The idiots think we won't be able to tell the difference between French men and Bulgarian women? What kind of fool thinks he can do Potter better than J. K.?). It starts out fairly well, but it slowly, very slowly, there's a lot of time for it to slowly dawn, there's nothing else to it. I'm not saying that the last few minutes are painful, or that the second half is painful...there's so much pain I can't even say where it begins. Just realize-as they obviously don't-that if you're going to run a movie well into its third hour you have a responsibility to go somewhere. The cool special effects, the great sets, the gentle and occasionally witty deviations from the obvious, yeah I know, we've already seen it.
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