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Sunday has come and gone. The invite for catching the newest installment of Harry Potter (HP) resulted in multiple cancellations. At the end, only 6 of us went (Sai Keun and Carol, Tebu and Kai Vern [is the spelling right?], WL and myself). I tried reserving the tickets but, believe it or not, the Golden Screen Cinema (GSC) phone lines were engaged until 1am Friday and by the time I got through, it was fully booked. Call me unlucky. I went personally to purchase the tickets and managed to secure six fifth row seats for the noon show.

Boy, did I regret purchasing tickets for the earliest show. Not because the movie was bad, mind you. Simply because my sister’s wedding dinner was on Saturday and we only managed to get to bed at 5am. Needless to say, the alarm clock did not manage to wake us. Fortunately, Sai Keun called at 11.40am to ask where we were. The traffic wasn’t too bad and I managed to run up to the cineplex and hand over the tickets while WL parked the car. I’m not sure about the others but WL and I missed the opening sequence of the movie (I apologise once again if you guys missed it too).

As I mentioned before, the 4th HP book is the best in the series thus far and I was looking forward to the movie. So how did the movie actually match up to the book? Personally, I found the show to be entertaining and lived up to some of my expectations. However, there are several inconsistencies and deviations from the book, which of course, movies are wont to do. Navin put it best when he SMSed me a week earlier to tell me that the HP4 movie had too much story and too little time to tell it in. That is inspite of the fact that the movie ran for 2 hours and 35 minutes!

They definitely did get the major parts of the book into the movie, such as the portkey travel in the beginning, a quick quidditch worldcup sequence, the announcement of the Triwizard Tourney, the arrival of the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, the drama with the Goblet of Fire, Mad-Eye Moody and the unforgivable curses, Dragons, Merfolks and Mazes, and the most important bit of Voldermort’s ressurection. However, they also left out significant pages of the book; probably those that were deemed unimportant to the development of the story line. This leaves a few loose ends and some skips in the movie. The director also took liberty to change some of the story lines and order to better fit into the movie.

The setting is much darker than previous installments (the movie soundtrack actually contributes greatly to the ambience), with a fair bit of violence. Although rated U, the movie might not be suitable children (which constitutes a large portion of the fanbase for Harry Potter books). However, considering that children are already exposed to such violence through video games and such, I don’t think it’d make much difference.

The main cast has grown up (Emma Watson is definitely chiq material). Some of the familiar faces (McGonagal, Snape, Dursleys, Hagrid, etc) take to the sidelines, while the newer characters and casts take centre stage and become the focus of the movie. The appearance of Voldermort is one of several highlights of the movie.

The cast and crew of HP4 has definitely put in considerable effort to making the movie a success and I give them credit for a job well done. It doesn’t do justice to the book but it is a passable effort. I personally enjoyed the movie. Having read the books, my opinion is a little biased since I know what is going to happen next and can fill in some of the blanks for myself. However, WL who hasn’t read the book says that the show was great at the beginning as it introduced new spells and characters, but confusing towards the end. Questions like “How did the others escape the maze?” and “How come Harry Potter save two people in the second task and where the girl come from?” are among the questions that popped up after the show. The show goes by too fast to explain such details and that leaves the uninformed guessing.

All in, a good movie and a recommended watch. Catch it in the cinemas if you can. Home theatres just don’t cut it.