Harry is back for another year at Hogwart’s and this time he finds that he is getting involved in a situation whether he wants to or not. The Triwizard Tournament has arrived at Hogwarts and he is mistakenly, mysteriously entered into the contest, which binds its participants to an unbreakable contract agreement to participate. Confused, but mostly scared, Harry makes his way through the tournament the best way he can and focuses on one thing only, survival. Going against dragons, mermaids and his fellow contestants, he must do his best to win and also not to be killed.
For me this movie really defined the final push to the overall story. Harry’s world becomes real and his own conflicting inner emotions with friends and family are soon overshadowed by this giant looming death that is Voldamort; it’s like this is the final childhood for the poor kid before life truly becomes hard. Director Mike Newell made this transition almost seamless, as we see Harry go from scared boy to scarred boy by the end of the film.
Newell’s talent of taking multiple storylines and creating engaging characters for the audience to connect with in a short amount of time (Four Weddings and a Funeral anyone?) is put to the test with this movie. I am still amazed that he took the 700 plus page book and put together a solid film that fans of the series can be happy with. My wife, and a few other folks, was complaining about the absence of the house elf storyline, but something had to go unless Warner Brothers wanted to approve a six-hour film; which I don’t think they did. Newell’s choice to cut here and there paid off with a very fast paced storyline, but it did seem at times a bit rushed in other areas of importance. His big triumph would have to be the ending, as we are introduced to Lord Voldamort in the flesh played by the wonderful Ralph Fiennes.
So is this movie perfect? Not at all, but what makes this movie stand out really well is how much action and exciting moments were included in it. It’s like being taken on a rollercoaster that has tremendous high sensational value to it, but regretfully is over much too quickly. Again, it’s probably the toughest book to translate, but Newell and cast did a great job with bringing it all to life in the short amount of time they had.
If you compared this Blu-ray ultimate edition to the others you would find that it separates itself from the pack. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire contains a heck of a lot more action than previous editions of the film series. What this action does is it creates really gorgeous moments onscreen for the HD to shine through. For example, when Harry is fighting against the horntailed dragon during one of the triwizard tournament events you get some spectacular HD shots of Harry frantically escaping the beast. Eventually both of them end up on the rooftop of Hogwarts and you can see really rich texture on the roof and really rich reds coming from Harry’s outfit. It’s really quite stunning and the entire film is like this. Goblet of Fire is colorful from beginning to end and it shines beautifully in high-definition with no grain at all.
As for the audio, it excels beyond the others just like the video. It does help that the Triwizard Tournament takes place in the story, which features competing against live dragons, struggling through treacherous waters and ultimately going head-to-head with Voldamort; so, yeah there’s plenty of opportunities for the DTS-HD mastered audio to really flow beautifully to the audience’s ears. Need an example of how great this film is in the audio department? Dolby was featuring this film when they were touting the HD-DVD (don’t laugh) audio capabilities in Dolby 7.1 at the Consumer Electronic Show one year (2006?). From what I’ve gathered those folks know a little about good audio, which lends some credit to my boasting of how great this Blu-ray’s audio truly can be.
Anyway, let’s get to the other goods in this film.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire comes equipped with some really great features and goodies. On the disc side of things you get two additional discs along side the main feature. One of the discs is a Blu-ray packed with HD footage on the sound and music of the film. On this same disc you also get some television specials and slew of different featurettes specifically from the Goblet of Fire. Just like the third movie’s ‘ultimate edition’ treatment, it’s really some insightful stuff that adds to the Blu-ray film.
As for the other disc, you get a DVD packed with features you may have seen already from previous releases. They cover the entire Goblet of Fire film and range from the Yule Ball to some really fun games that kids will get a kick out of on the DVD. In addition to this disc and the two Blu-ray, you also get a nice hardback booklet that talks about the sound and music in the entire series and a couple of character cards for your ‘ultimate edition’ collection.
Not bad for a big collection.