On my birthday last week I got gift vouchers for a movie from André and Gerður. They came into use last night when I went with my girlfriend to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

This is the first Harry Potter film that I watch at the cinema, I saw the first two on borrowed DVDs last year, and when I heard that the fourth film was coming up I quickly located a used copy of the third film (and the first two while I was at it) in a local second-hand shop, and watched it. This means that I had the third film in fresh memory when I watched the fourth. That helps.

I haven’t read any of the books, but I realize that one of the problems with following Harry Potter by watching the films instead of reading the books is that the experience gets very chopped up. Books are read over a longer time, the film is slightly over two hours. When the films now are released every or every second year, that makes it a bit difficult to remember what happened in the earlier episodes. It’s possible that Harry Potter would have worked better as a TV series than as a film series, especially considering we are getting to a considerable number of episodes.

But nevertheless I thought it was a good film. The tone was a lot darker than the three previous ones, and the age limit of 11 might be just a tad too low, if I had seen it as an eleven-year-old the film probably would have scared me more than once. With that said, I don’t believe it in any way was exaggerated, the film uses the tone that was needed to tell the story.

Right, the story-telling. A film of two and a half hour can of course not cover everything that is written in a book of seven hundred pages, and I find that quite obvious. As mentioned, I haven’t read the book, and it is a burden for me when I watch the film, there are some quick turns and details that are only briefly explained. I would guess that if you have read the book you would understand a lot more than if you didn’t.

But all in all it is a good film, and if you like the Harry Potter films, you won’t be disappointed. Recommended!