Poorly done. Lost is the essence, and Magic of the Potter films.

Rating: 3/10 (4 December 2005)

The first two Harry Potter films were and are ENCHANTINGLY MAGICAL! Although a little rough on the special effects, they greatly improve from the first the the second films. The third movie, Pisoner of Azkaban, was a much darker film, and lost some of the luster and magic. It even had some evil connotations that were not in the book and should not have been in the movie, shrunken heads, spinal-column candle sticks!!!......Not what I would have expected from Hogwarts.....The extremely poor recasting of the HeadMaster Dumbledore further dragged the movie down (even given that Richard Harris is a hard act to follow)....... Even so the third movie worked and was enjoyable to watch.
Now with the 4Th installment of the series, Goblet of Fire, all the essence and Magic of the stories and especially the book is gone. The total mangling of Dumbledore's character to the exact opposite of the book, just made things worse. Gone is the wise and powerful Wizard of the books, leaving a bumbling old fool, very poorly done and greatly dragged the story down. Also gone are some of the most important characters and story lines that are essential not only to the storyline but also lead into the fifth, book Order of the Phoenix.
There is no Dabby, winky, or Weasley's Wizardly Weezes. True the 4th book is much longer, and to fit it all in a 2-1/2 hour movie something has to go. The problems is the movie, in places, dwells on meaningless things and leaves out some of the most important to the story and are tags into the 5th book.
In the Tournament Harry is made out to be much less a hero than in the book, he is somehow made to seem much less capable than he is.
The acting from the young actors was very wooden and often lacked emotion. This I noticed right off. I was most disappointed by Emma Watson who nailed it in Azkaban, by giving a very rich, emotional, performance. But here she seemed almost like she really didn't want to be in the movie or something. This made me sad, for I am a big fan of Emma's, and think that in a few years, she will become an absolutely stunning leading lady. Overall I got the feeling the young actors where trying to hard to act grown up or something, maybe it is just teen angst. Mad eye Moody was way over the top.
The film is visually stunning, with an awesome sound track, and that is its only good points. It was almost as if all the effort in this film went into the effect and sound track, and the story line and acting were after thoughts........THE MAGIC WAS GONE! If I were to rate the four films "Sorcers Stone" - A; "Chamber or Secrets"- A+; "Pisoner of Askaban" - B+ and "Goblet of Fire" = C- or even D. I wonder why the films after peaking with Chamber of Secrets have been slowly going down hill. I have two theories on this. Grossly incompetent interference by studio exec's or Grossly incompetent Directing. Then I looked at who directed the four films so far and the reason became clearer. Chris Columbus directed that first two and thus the MAGICAL quality and feel to the films, Alfonso Cuarón directed the third thus the slight loss of Magical feel to the film, but still a good flick. Mike Newell direct this film (4th) which was out of his depth thus the poor quality and loss of Magical feel to the film. Don't get me wrong Newell is a great director and has done many great works, he simple just does not have the feel for directing Harry Potter.
I hope Columbus does the next or I fear the next film will be even worse, and please get a better Dumbledore, as strange as it seems Sean Connery or Rodger Moore come to mind......Ah maybe not......But then again anyone would be better.........
P.S. To IMDb please quit trying to download SPY-WARE onto peoples computers!!!