Screwing up my eyes and pressing my face against the screen, I was just about able to recognise the redoubtable Eric Sykes, playing an elderly caretaker stumbling upon a hugger-mugger conspiracy of villains in which the unspeakable Dark Lord's face is still concealed. We get an opening sequence of snakes and skulls and corridors which Newell has apparently lit with a single 30-watt bulb. Harry is however feeling the painful stirrings of romance, and Hermione is increasingly exasperated that the two useless, lumbering boys she's hanging around with are failing to understand or appreciate her on any level other than chum.ĭark is what all fantasy movies aspire to be now - and director Mike Newell has certainly taken this to heart. Could that subdued second adjective be hinting at metaphors for adolescent upheaval? If so, it is an adolescence so far free of acne, anti-authority attitudes and tattoos - except the one painfully imposed upon our young hero by the evil Voldemort. And here is their fourth adventure, The Goblet of Fire, in which, the posters promise us, dark and difficult times lie ahead.
It's a weird experience for all of us getting older with them in real time. T he years come and go the seasons rise and fall and trainee wizards Harry, Ron and Hermione have grown into loping teenagerhood, along with their actors, Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson.
