The Best, Until The End

Rating: 10/10 (6 July 2016)

This film eliminates a major flaw of the previous films. The narrative shouldn't be a tool to tell the Wizarding World, the Wizarding World should be there as a tool to tell the narrative of the CURRENT entry. This entry has its own, self-contained storyline; its own unique concepts are explored rather than further exploration of the bigger picture. The problem with some film series is the first film is the beginning, the next film is the middle, and the last film is the end to one story rather than being three stories with their own beginnings, middles, and ends.
This is not how it should be. This series started out very much the same, with "Sorcerer's Stone" being the exposition and "Chamber Of Secrets" being the beginning. Only "Prisoner Of Azkaban" has its own beginning, middle, and end of its narrative. But still, at this point the films serve more as set-up for the future rather than their own stories.
"The Goblet Of Fire" doesn't steer away from its main plot for the sake of talking about the Wizarding World. It uses elements from the rest of the Wizarding World, but only to talk about the story of THIS film. The Wizarding schools from around the world are a piece in this film's story, a complete flip of the previous entries being pieces to tell the story of the Wizarding World.
The only problem I have with this film is at its finale. Once they complete the Triwizard tournament, the plot of this film (being that someone once loyal to The Dark Lord has been manipulating this tournament and is hiding in the school) is interrupted to show us what is currently going on with the larger scale bad guy of Voldemort. I feel like I'm suddenly watching a different movie, not related to the narrative of the Triwizard tournament being manipulated. While this interruption has great material and is very interesting, it's a complete 180 on the focus of the plot.
The rest of the movie (once Harry gets back from the Graveyard) feels incomplete, as suddenly the movie shifts its focus to setting up what's going on with Voldemort for the later movies, then ends on the note of the characters wondering what they have to do next. A movie that has so far had its own beginning, middle, and end has gone back to the purpose of being just a beginning or just a middle or just an end. This movie reaches its own climax, and even its own falling action, but is stopped just short of landing its own ending and instead ends on what feels like an incomplete plot-thread. The movie goes from being its own unique entry to being just a climax in a story still yet to be complete.
But that doesn't change the fact the self-contained story of this film is truly wonderful, and this films rises as the Tri-Wizard Champion of the series thus-far.