Review: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

In the space of about a month during the summer, I read all six Harry Potter books back-to-back. The are about as addictive as crack cocaine so anyone thinking of delving into the world of Wizards, Hogwarts, owls and pumpkin juice beware; they will take up every second of your free time. Dismissed as children’s books by the ignorant, the series has depth and a level of sophistication (and entertainment) that can be appreciated by anyone. While not as epic as The Lord of the Rings, the Potter books easily surpass the dated Chronicles of Narnia. It remains to be seen which of the various film adaptations of these similarly themed books will prove most successful.

Peter Jackson set the bar high in terms of the quality of transition from book to the big screen and success with his Lord of the Rings trilogy. Mike Newell, with Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - released last weekend - has done equally well with a challenging adaptation that condensed a 700 page book into a two and a half hour film. The subplots he cut, while adding to a readers enjoyment of J. K. Rowling's book, were the right choices for the film version. So Hermione's fight to liberate house-elves and much of Rita Skeeter's reporting are gone. Instead the film concentrates on the Triwizard tournament and our hero's raging hormones which makes for intense action scenes and explosive fights between the principle characters. The effects work is flawless as can be seen in the awe-inspiring dragon chase sequence.

As is the case in the books the films are getting darker with each instalment. Harry's nemesis Lord Voldemort finally makes an his long awaited appearance and he is played in all his insidious nastiness by Ralph Fiennes. The performance of the three leads are honed to perfection. It's now difficult to imagine anyone else playing these characters - especially Rupert Grint as Ron. They may look older than fourteen - as they were supposed to be in the film - but its not exactly usual to see actors in their twenties play characters in their teens. Hopefully they will stay on to complete the series. On another note it was great to see an expanded role for Ron's twin brothers Fred and George who truly are legends - I can't wait until they are truly given a chance to shine in The Order of the Phoenix.

The only criticism I would have is that the score is definitely weaker than the first few films in the franchise, perhaps a symptom of the loss of John Williams this time around.

Overall though I thoroughly enjoyed it. Goblet is certainly up there with the much lauded Prisoner of Azkaban and surpasses the first two Potter films. Go see it!

DUBYA!

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Sinn Féin: Criminality, Corruption and Columbia

Last weekend Sinn Féin, the political wing of the now disarmed Irish Republican Army and a rising and nefarious force in Ireland's politics, celebrated its one hundredth year of existence in a lavish extravaganza in the Park West Hotel in Dublin. Never mind that, as Kevin Myers pointed out in The Irish Times, the party barely resembles the one set up by Arthur Griffith in 1905 and that most Irish political parties could claim the same roots, the Sinn Féin President, Gerry Adams claimed the centenary for his own motley collection of terrorists, murderers and fellow-travellers.

For me though, it wasn’t the hijacking by Sinn Féin of the origins of the Irish Republic - which incidentally it’s formerly armed buddies in the IRA opposed - that left me nauseated - modern Sinn Féin have being doing that since its foundation at the start of the Northern Troubles. It was a throwaway line in Adams’ speech. Welcoming his audience he smugly noted that some of them had come all the way from Columbia to attend the event. He was referring to the so-called ‘Columbia Three’ (pictured above), Sinn Féin/IRA men who travelled to the South American country on false documents and claimed that they were there for bird watching and to observe the non-existent Columbian peace process. Only the truly naïve would believe this, the Columbian government’s assertion that the men were training the left-wing FARC guerrilla group being a far more likely explanation of their visit.

What makes me sick is that there is certain amount of admiration in Ireland for these desperados who undertook an expedition to the depths of the jungle, encountered revolutionaries and the harsh Columbian prison system, fled the admittedly corrupt authorities there and escaped back to Ireland after four years to tell the tale. Upon their return graffiti soon appeared at the bottom of the very street on which I live saying ’welcome home Martin, Niall and Jim’. There appears to be no chance that these men will be extradited back to Columbia and the Irish government doesn’t seem to care. Adam’s line unsurprisingly received a large cheer at the Sinn Féin event. The fact remains though that Martin McCauley, Niall Connolly and James Monaghan were undoubtedly in South America in 2001 to help a vicious terrorist group prolong a bloody civil war, presumably with the aim of enriching Sinn Féin/IRA with cocaine money in the process.

Sinn Féin may be a publicly reformed organisation with the decommissioning of IRA weapons and increasing electoral popularity in the North and South of Ireland. However its support for the Columbian Three and the party’s involvement in bank robberies and smuggling in Ireland shows that it does not belong in a modern democracy - especially when the proceeds of these crimes are being used to forward Sinn Féin’s ambitions of power. Unfortunately the culture among some in Irish society tends to support the rebel , with misguided and ignorant nationalism meaning that many support Sinn Féin for the very reason that the majority still oppose it - its symbiosis with the IRA and the futile and war that it waged with Britain for thirty years.