OK....but don't go overboard

Rating: 6/10 (20 November 2005)

Well, this installment of the Harry Potter franchise was good enough, but to me it fell short of the mark. I felt that part of the blame would be the rather segmented script for the movie and the lack of punch the film should have had during the third task leading up to the final confrontation in the graveyard. The other part was the music, which to me was not as good as the other 3 movies, maybe the loss of John Williams was the reason.
Don't get me wrong, I thought the movie had some good attributes. The actors all did very well, and the adult actors especially showed all the class they had even if they had short scenes. Even though all the cast members were fighting for screen time, I thought some of them really stood out. Brandon Gleeson, in his performance as Mad Eye Moody, was quite good, along with Maggie Smith, who as always will always give you fine acting, even though she only had a few minutes of screen time. Likewise, Alan Rickman also stood out in the two scenes he had. I was also impressed by Miranda Richardson's performance as Rita Skeeter, who to me really represented the character in the book superbly.
As for the young actors, they have improved since the first movie. Daniel Radcliffe doesn't seem so wooden anymore, Rupert Grint doesn't look like an idiot Ron and Emma Watson looked sound as a mature Hermione. Matthew Lewis also stood out among the young actors, giving a lot more perspective to Neville, other than the clumsy Neville, which thank goodness he did, because Neville was given perspective by J.K Rowling in Books 4 and 5 and it was important that Lewis showed that.
I was slightly disappointed by Michael Gambon's performance though, as he performed a lot less cooler version of Dumbledore, which to me was a betrayal of the character we love in the books. For example, seeing Dumbledore shaking Harry vigorously to ask whether he put his name in the Goblet of Fire was totally unlike Dumbledore, who is supposed to be cool and calm, and to the point of being cold when angry. Perhaps this could have been the fault of the script, but to me Harris' Dumbledore was perfect and ever since Gambon came in Dumbledore just seemed...more erratic and frantic.
This brings me to the point in the beginning...the script. I felt that Kloves did not do a very good job here, because he had cut out a lot of parts that were vital to either continuity or thrill. I have to take my hat of to Mike Newell, who to me made a miracle when he made the first 15 minutes work. Those 15 minutes involved the Quidditch World Cup, the nightmare and the the Dark Mark work, by getting his actors to act properly to ensure that there are no issues of continuity.
Even then, the dark mark scene did not make sense as leaving Harry alone with Barty Crouch Junior means that Barty Jr could just take Harry and apparate straight to his master and then, Voldemort could use Harry's blood for his return. And what in the heck is he doing at the Quidditch World Cup if he's supposed to be with Voldemort at the time, helping Wormtail take care of him? Another issue of continuity would be the Veritaserum scene where Barty Jr was forced to tell the truth. Barty Jr was supposed to be kissed by a dementor so that Voldemort's rising would still be a secret to the rest of the wizarding world. It looks as though Mira Nair has a lot of work to because now Movie 5 has to explain what happened to old Barty Jr and how Fudge and Dumbledore parted ways, added to the burden of the huge cutting they have to do for Book 5.
I also thought that the edited storyline for the third task was poor. I mean despite all the feeble attempts to make the maze scary, all it basically was wind, blowing around and roots trying to snag Harry and Cedric. Please, this is the third task! The Final Task. No matter how much editing there was to be done, the third task should essentially be more dangerous than the other two tasks. Krum's controlled mind does not count, as it's not part of the third task, but of Barty Jr's imperius curse.
There were a lot more goofs than that, and I could go on all day but, they all point to the storyline. This movie had so much to offer. Marvellous acting, good direction from Newell, good special effects and lots more but it was spoilt by the compressed segmented and ultimately patchy script and editing, but in all accounts this movie has not doomed the franchise, and don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that this movie is bad it's still above average, just that it could have been so much better.