Not as good as the first three but still wonderfully imaginative and dark!

Rating: 10/10 (4 July 2006)

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire/2005/***1/2
Main Stars: Daniel Radcliffe Emma Watson Rupert Grint Robert Pattinson Clémence Poésy Stanislav Ianevski Michael Gambon
This film is great and wonderfully imaginative but is probably my least favorite of the Harry Potter movie series. I had a feeling this would be greater than expected after seeing the preview a dozen times. Yet I was not exactly correct. The thing is the composer was not John Williams (as it was in the other three Harry Potter movies). It was Patrick Doyle whom I have never heard of. The direction was by Mike Newell whom also I have never heard of. So there are quite a few people that are new to me but there still is Steve Kloves (the screenwriter for the whole series so far). I have heard of him so there's one. I um It's heard to explain this movie because there are too many things going on at once. Basically it is a great film but yet not as good as the first and second which were astounding. Let me try to define; Harry is in yet another adventure of almost getting killed. There. Okay. Okay. Yes, there is a lot more to the story than that. Harry finds that his crush is going to the Yule Ball (the dance) at the school with someone else named Cedric Diggory (Robert Pattinson). Harry's crush is named Cho Chang. Having read half of the book already, I knew about most of the beginning and knew what was going to happen. The thing is they cut a lot of the information (the details) from the book out in the movie because (obviously) you can't fit a whole amount of detail from a 700-page book in a 2-½ hour movie. You just can't. But to me it was still great and extremely dark and I can tell it took a lot of effort to make this film (especially for the visual/special effects coordinators). This film probably had more special effects than any of the Harry Potter movies out there. Now in this movie not only does Hogwarts house the Hogwarts students but also houses the students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang. Those two words I mentioned are names of different schools of magic besides Hogwarts. They are housed at Hogwarts because they consist of a champion of The Triwizard Tournament. There is a champion of Hogwarts named Cedric Diggory (Robert Pattinson), a champion of Beauxbatons named Fleur Delacour (Clémence Poésy), and a champion of Durmstrang named Viktor Krum (Stanislav Ianevski), but Harry Potter also is included in that because of a magical goblet that spit out his name on a burning piece of parchment (along with the other three champions). Now you notice that it's called The Triwizard Tounament; meaning that there should only be three wizard/witches that are in it. In this case it should be called The Quadrawizard Tournament since there is a member of Hogwarts that is joined but Harry is also in there. So there are really two people from Hogwarts and one person from the other two competing schools. Now, this so-called goblet is the main thing in this book and film because that goblet tells whom the champion will be from each school that competes in The Triwizard Tournament (That's obviously where they get the title of the book/film). Whoever those champions consist will be the ones who are assigned three tasks that are very difficult. Whoever wins will win the cup. 'Wiz' is emblazoned on the cup and whoever wins will be the 'Wiz' of The Triwizard Tournament. Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) was obviously not as good as Richard Harris (the one prior to Gambon) because he had was too gruff and too loud and not as wise as Harris was. Richard was a tough guy though because he still played Dumledore even though he was very sick while on the set of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and then soon passed away. There also is a teacher that shows up in this movie and teaches the Defense against the Dark Arts class (a new teacher) named Mad-Eye Moody. At the end is a shock though and it involves this character so watch closely. Other than that you have your usual other characters: Hermione, Ron, and Draco Malfoy who didn't have a huge part in this movie (Draco I mean) nor did his comrades. Movie directed by Mike Newell. Oh! By the way, this is also the film where you see Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) in person! Very awesome!