A truly entertaining movie, but some ropey acting and appalling dialogue disappoints in places

Rating: 8/10 (21 March 2006)

We're now into the fourth year at Hogwarts, and of course Harry Potter is in mortal danger. Well, isn't he always? We are introduced to the Death Eaters, he finds himself being put forward for the Tri-Wizard Tournament, and to round it all off, he comes face-to-face with his old pal, Lord Voldemort. So at the very least, the core storyline makes it across from the book. And that's about it.
What we get is a two-and-a-half hour roller-coaster of action scenes, melodramatic situations and suffering, all uncomfortably compacted with little room to spare for the side-plots that the book puts in place for Order of the Phoenix. In fact, there are many questions left unanswered, even if you just stuck to the films. For instance, why is Sirius in hiding, and how will Rita Skeeter's much reduced on-screen presence affect the plot development in the next film? There isn't a lot of effort made in tying up the loose ends, to link Goblet of Fire to Prisoner of Azkaban, or even to set the stage for Order of the Phoenix, but I think a lot of this comes down to the fact the franchise seems to run through as many directors as Hogwarts runs through Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers. The lack of consistency from one film to the next is starting to show, and the risk is that the later films will simply become standalone 'episodes' rather than a series as it should be.
The dialogue can be weak in places. There didn't really seem to be a need for Ron to swear at Harry at all, especially after ten seconds of deafening silence, and for some inexplicable reason, Emma Watson (Hermione) seems to have developed the urge to overact again, in a similar fashion to Philosopher's Stone. We know she can turn on the waterworks at will, but there are times when you hope she can portray Hermione being happy, just for once and without a forced accent.
With the absence of many key characters from the book, several elements of the Tri-Wizard Tournament are left to the main characters to pick up. Dobby the House Elf, who featured heavily in the book, is absent altogether, even though he plays an important role in the second challenge. Instead, it's Neville Longbottom who has to pick up the slack there.
Yet despite all these problems, the film is actually pretty good. The dialogue though weak in parts is genuinely funny, as is some of the on-screen antics of the characters, with several instances seemingly more ad-libbed than what had been written in the script.
If there was one major gripe I had, then it would be with Michael Gambon. I thought he played a good Dumbledore in Prisoner of Azkaban, but I'm less convinced this time around. Dumbledore is rarely aggressive in the books and there's no reason why he should be in the films either. I feel it is pretty bad form not to carry out some research before reprising a role. In this case, Gambon should've been reading the books in his spare time.
A minor gripe to coincide with what I've written above is the general atmosphere of the film. The book was extremely dark, and there were moments where I really felt emotionally strained reading it. Sadly, this isn't so for the film. The dark atmosphere has been toned down considerably which removed some of the heightened sense of fear that was supposed to permeate throughout not just Hogwarts, but the wizarding world as a whole.
The Yule Ball, a fairly minor event in the book it has to be said, also seemed to water down the moody atmosphere, although the set-to moments between Ron and Hermione were as good as I could've hoped. In those rare moments you actually see Hermione being happy, you could almost guarantee Ron would find some way to scupper it. In fact, the funniest moment came during one such argument, when Harry turns up out of nowhere only for Hermione to order both him and Ron to bed, like she was their mother. If there was one moment when the on screen character had been a virtual copy to that of the book, this was it.
Overall, it's still worth seeing. It may lack the tension and atmosphere of the book, but in no way does that make it a bad film. I'm still curious why the content earned it a 12 rating here in the UK, when it was far less scary than Prisoner of Azkaban, but that's the censors for you. It's not necessarily worth owning on DVD (although I do), but it is worth seeing at least once. Truly entertaining, but technically not the best Harry Potter offering to date.