JP Movie Review: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Bottom line: Not epic, but good dark fun and a nice follow to Prisoner of Azkaban.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire isn't the best movie in the Potter series (that would go to Azkaban, in my opinion), but it is a worthy successor.

After Star Wars and Batman Begins, we have another continuing story of a boy who loses his parents to violence and has to deal with it. Harry the boy wizard finally gets a face off against his enemy in the climax of this one. The graveyard confrontation is well done and opens up bunches of new questions for the movies to come.

This Potter flick is a long one at two-and-a-half hours, but it goes by as fast as it can. New director wisely makes the choice to cut to the chase and spare us the usual Muggle world intro. We also are spared a lot of reminders of who is who and what is what. If you don't know by now, why are you watching this movie, I guess.

The book was so huge, though, so they had to cram a lot in and make choices on leaving stuff out. I felt like this one rushed too much in some places and gave short shrift to some of the conflicts (Ron's anger at Harry over believing Harry put his name in the goblet to compete in the tri-wizard contest), characters (too little Snape) and unexplained plot points (some potential spoilers I won't mention about events at the climax).

But the effects were good (the dragons looked great, as did the Hogwarts castle...but the mermaids were a little too CGIish). The reappearance of Moaning Mrytle was great.

I think the actors have gotten better with each installment and really have tapped into each character's motivations and feelings. Harry was originally this reluctant hero type. Now you feel some resentment from others over Harry's status as "the chosen one." I like that he's not just automatically "King of the World." I look forward to the next.