Goblet up

Rating: 8/10 (31 January 2010)

I've been watching the Harry Potter films in order without having read the books, and this has been my favorite by far, synthesizing and and adding to elements from its three predecessors to make a very satisfying film -- there's an easy-to-follow and clear but suspenseful story all the way through surrounding Harry's mysterious appointment to fight in the tournament and his travails in trying to compete in it, which drives the film very well; there's always somewhere to go and it never drags at its length of over two and a half hours.
The principles are getting old enough to explore early adulthood and this is handled very well and emphasized without bludgeoning -- we have reached a point where they now have legitimate character conflicts, which are the soul of drama. That means the interest doesn't just have to come from supernatural dangers that accost Harry and his friends, but is effective if not more when it comes from personal dangers between them. There's a whole subplot involving a kind of wizard prom that illustrates this -- it could have been the worst transplanted soap opera, but instead it's charming and involving.
There's a new character in "MadEye" Moody who I think is fantastic -- he's highly entertaining and off-the-wall unusual while still being somehow totally believable. Michael Gambon gets more to do as the wizard Dumbledore and plays the part with the same absolute conviction he always seems to summon. As a Doctor Who fan, I got some novelty from seeing a future Doctor, David Tennant, in a very different kind of role here.
The humor here is very good, and of a very human kind; it's woven with seamless integration into the unfolding of the story. The production design is up to the impossibly high standards of the previous films, and there is a new fantastical spookiness to the lavish film-making that works wonderfully.
On the whole this film seemed willing to go in a lot more subtle directions than the first three often wanted to, and by grounding its wild fantasy in a solid foundation on the good old fashioned elements of sound drama and a cracking good story came up with an extremely enjoyable movie.