Among the British sirs, dames and quality hams returning to the series are Michael Gambon, Alan Rickman, Robbie Coltrane, Maggie Smith, Timothy Spall and Gary Oldman, whose brief appearance is sadly little more than a tease. New to the scene are Miranda Richardson as Rita Skeeter, a snoopy journalist who is mainly on hand to remind us that Harry is no longer a child, and Brendan Gleeson as the latest addition to the Hogwarts staff, Mad-Eye Moody. A man of garrulous temperament and removable parts, including a googly eye that he wears like a pirate's patch, Mad-Eye is a pip.
As good as these actors are, nothing prepares you for the malevolent force that is Lord Voldemort and the brilliance of the actor playing him, Ralph Fiennes. Dressed in a flowing black robe that seems to float off his body rather than hang, Fiennes moves with lissome grace, his smooth white head bobbing like a cork on a sea, his fluttery hands and feet as pale and bright as beacons. For years, the movies have tried to transform this delicate beauty into a heartthrob, but as Schindler's List proved, Fiennes is an actor for whom a walk on the darker side is not just a pleasure, but liberation.
If Cuaron raised the series to a new level with Azbakan, Newell, best known for ingratiating mainstream fare like Four Weddings and a
Funeral and best remembered for the bracing likes of Donnie Brasco, manages to keep his contribution at a similarly high level of enthrallment. The gloom and doom may be less poetically realized, but the combination of British eccentricity, fatalism and steady-on pluck remains irresistibly intact.
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