For the first time Harry Potter movie bitterly disappointed me.

Rating: 5/10 (23 December 2005)

These comments might contain spoilers, especially for people, who haven't read the book
First of all, don't get me wrong. I'm not a hater and I liked JKR books (although I never mentioned them among the best books ever) as well as three previous movies (more first two more than third) so I went today to see Goblet of Fire to the biggest multiplex theater in my city. My expectations were high but this day I went through one of my biggest disappointments caused by a motion picture.
From very first shots of the movie, when I saw Barty Crouch junior, next to Voldemort I had a terrible feeling that something's wrong here and this feeling grew with every minute. And soon things were getting worse. After about fifteen minutes I realized that the movie is falling apart into numerous separate scenes (twenty or thirty  I didn't count, which looks like TV clips) or episodes hardly connected with each other or without such connection at all. Mentioned scene at Riddle house was followed by another one, already at Burrow (Weasley's home) and a minute later we are at Quidditch World Cup a couple of minutes before final match begins. But after only several shots (not bad) there was another gap and now (without quidditch at all) we see our heroes under the tent after the match. Another pause, another gap - that's happening all the time. After a half an hour two very simple questions have rose in my mind and completely captured it. Who wrote this script? And who was a guy who directed this movie? Despite numerous previous opinions, I have to say that fourth movie does not justify the book, does not justify its characters and its atmosphere. Too many things (and unfortunately important things) were completely missed or drastically changed that I begin to think that initial idea of making two separate movies wasn't bad at all. Most of characters and particularly such new characters like Cedric, Krum or Cho are entirely undeveloped. Albus Dumbledore from the greatest wizard of modern times was transformed into some kind of a silly old man. Krum, who wasn't mean at all in the book, become different in the movie. But what's the worst Cedric's character also suffered a lot. The scene in the labyrinth before they took Goblet was definitely one of the best in the whole book. All their inner struggles and hesitations have completely disappeared and instead of that we got ridiculous chase between Cedric and Harry. Cedric's death in the book is a really terrible loss and emotional episode because he's a truly good and honest character but we don't feel that in the movie. All scenes from Triwizard tournament in reality became one of the most ridiculous action sequences I've seen in a long time. At the beginning some genius has invented a dragon flying and chasing Harry all over the castle while everyone is waiting on their seats. What a load of rubbish! Next task was a lake, almost all the time deserted and quiet (except for mermaids, who were just watching) and finally there was the labyrinth. Somehow this ridiculous labyrinth was also completely deserted without any creature inside so the third task was transformed into a preposterous chase between lines of hedges. And I can go on and go on. Overall, the movie is very raw and rather shallow and incredibly rushed. Most of people in the movie theater, who haven't read Harry Potter books were completely disoriented and confused after only a few such mentioned in the beginning separated scenes or episodes. Mike Newell's direction unfortunately wasn't any better than a disastrous script. Instead the way of the book, common sense and cold logic he has chosen a way of cheesy coolness, surface polish, primitive dialog, and cheap and rather silly laughs. But this superficial coolness in most of cases is fake and senseless like in the scene with that stupid dragon or in the scene with Moaning Myrtle. Even with visuals there was nothing particularly astonishing and most of a few really memorable moments were already in the movie trailers. Another negative consequence of this kaleidoscopic rush was the acting. Alarmingly often there was simply no room acting. Among the very few things that I really liked were Emma Watson's performance and rather short the ball scene. Not pretty much from the whole movie. The other huge problem is that the movie in most of parts is emotionally flat and it is obviously that it wasn't supposed to be emotionally flat. The ending as practically everything else was rushed and shallow with rather a pathetic phrase, which we also already heard in a movie trailer. I've almost forgotten that somehow legendary John Williams was replaced and without his music the movie also has lost something appealing.
Certainly, I have no idea why so many people claim fourth Potter as the best Potter movie so far, as well about its commercial success. After the end of the credits the whole theater was dead silent and fair part of the audience looked pretty disappointed. I was pretty disappointed too and one thought bothered me the most. I believe that we a better script and with different director this movie could have been incomparably better and visually stunning (also because the fourth book is much deeper than previous three). And the very last thing I have to notice. Russian translation was really terrible.