More a survey of events than a complete movie

Rating: 5/10 (19 November 2005)

If "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" was twice as long, it would have had the potential of developing an actual cohesive story line. However, because the director unfortunately decided to try to smash 700-pages of a book into 2 1/2 hours, the movie simply jumps from one scene to the next without anything tying the events together.
Another problem is that time does not progress in a logical manner throughout the movie. The natural progression of events and relationships developed between characters seems to take place over a period of a week, not an entire school year. I mean, one minute they are on a train heading to Hogwarts (presumably August or September) and 30 minutes later it is Christmas Eve! Another example is that the tournament begins close to the beginning of school, and it ends at the end of school, with only 3 tournament events happening in between. Yet it seems like only a day or two passes between each event. The audience can only wonder how we got here so fast. Even the characters in the movie seem to be still getting to know each other (having had only a handful of social interactions with each other) by the end of the school year.
The unfortunate result is that relationships between the characters (which seems to be an important theme in the movie) are ineffective and rushed, making each scene where a character displays emotion look more like a result of teenage hormones than real issues that can be sympathized with. For example, when Hermione gets upset at the ball and cries, I was wondering "What's her problem? Oh, I get it, I'll bet she and that red-head kid kind of like each other." Perhaps if I had read the book before going into the movie, that would have been more obvious.
Overall, the movie does have some entertaining aspects, such as special effects and Ralph Fiennes playing Voldemort. Perhaps the next movie will take a little more time to develop (and give us more Gary Oldman, one of the most underrated and enjoyable actors of this generation).