Emperor's clothes

Rating: 3/10 (23 April 2006)

How any reviewer can claim this to be the best Potter film yet utterly astounds me.
Newell's direction is phoned in. Bland camera-work and poor performances from precocious theatre school cherubs is propped up on a decidedly dodgy crutch of huge CGI establishing shots and yet another promise of "more to come". Yet this is the fourth film and we're STILL waiting.
Best thing about the picture is Brendan Gleeson. Fiennes is OK, but thinks he's playing a villain in the 1980 Flash Gordon film.
Oldman, Rickman, Coltrane - wasted. And Michael Gambon is a poor substitute for Richard Harris.
Bring back Alfonso (Azkeban's director). There was a man that instilled J.K. Rowling's lukewarm story with style, energy, originality and menace.
Each subsequent installment in this appalling franchise sniffs more and more of "film making by committee" -- and boy, it shows.