Very enjoyable film - COULD HAVE BEEN MUCH BETTER

Rating: 6/10 (13 December 2005)

Like it or not, the primary audience for the Harry Potter films are fans of the Harry Potter books. And if you are one of the 80%+ of the box office who saw Goblet of Fire after having read the book, you were possibly very disappointed. The Harry Potter fans seem to be split 60-40 in favor of this film missing critical scenes and I wholly agree.
The film is exciting and fun and full of energy just like the previous three. It is also paced well and when it was over I was surprised to find it was 2.5 hours long. The problem in my opinion, is that they should have made it longer than that.
For starters, if people will sit through 3 hours of Tolkein's often difficult-to-follow storyline, they will surely sit that long for an easy, better-paced storyline like those in the Harry Potter films. Despite what is often said about Ms. Rowling controlling the script, the studio pays for the film and obviously trumped her, cutting critical scenes from the book including all but one involving Sirius Black (portrayed by Gary Oldman). The absence of Sirius is nothing short of a tragedy as his relationship with Harry is crucial to on-going story lines of the next two books/films. He is also obviously the most talented thespian in the cast - why cut his scenes?
They also cut the opening scenes with the Harry's aunt, uncle & cousin which are always a hoot. They cut an unnecessary subplot involving the house elves (I did not miss this, though it could be argued this has value down the line). They re-worked the whole story of Barty Crouch (for the worse, I would argue). And they unforgivably cut the absolutely critical ending in which Snape and Sirius actually shake hands and agree to fight Voldemort together - on Dumbledore's orders. This also happens to be the first time Molly Weasley is let in on the fact that Sirius is a good guy. In my opinion, the film should have ended on a tight shot of the shaking hands, music up and fade to black - a perfect ending, much more in line with the way the novel ends.
As I said, I enjoyed this film, but not as much as I would have with another 30 minutes in which they could have shown the above scenes as well as more of the Tri-Wizard Tournament (Harry's own performances against the dragon and the maze make up most of the tourney coverage - I would liked to have seen some of the other folks against their dragons) and more of Gary Oldman. The notion he was 'unavailable for filming' and that is why only his oddly-graphically-enhanced face appears for less than a minute in the entire film is ludicrous. The film took eight months to shoot and he lives in England, for cripes sake!
I give it a B- wishing it could be an A.