Best Potter since HP1

Rating: 9/10 (13 December 2005)

First of all I have to admit - that I have never read a Harry Potter novel. However, I have seen all the movies and there was no one which I completely disliked. However, I felt that they where very different from each other and I have my favorites. These are definitely HP1 and the new HP4!! HP1 was full of magic and cute ideas, perfectly brought into scene by director Chris Columbus.
HP2 was -- nice, but there was nothing in this film, that appeared to me especially noteworthy. HP3 was a good movie, but to my taste much to dark and scary for the envisaged audience.
HP4 makes these flaws completely forgotten! It features a highly dramatic plot with state-of-the-art visual effects. Well, nothing new for a HP movie. But the very special thing about this "Potter" is that the main characters become more complicate because they become older! The feelings and problems of growing-up are well portrayed and the cast does a really good job (as in every HP), especially Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter), Emma Watson (Hermione Granger) and Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley). Throughout the movie you are not sure what is harder for our young sorcerers - chatting with the other gender or encountering the evil forces. Director Mike Newell is able to create a very sensible and enjoyable picture of these conflicts - never forgetting that a Harry Potter has first to fight against monsters and dark powers and secondly has to resolve emotional problems...
This movie is just very well balanced. What I have missed were some of the funny gimmicks and characters which are so common for Hogwarts in earlier movies, like the ghosts, Dobby and other things. Things become highly dramatic rapidly and there is no space for extra-jokes in the densely packed plot. This is a little pity but understandable - the movie lasts for more than 3 hours!
At last I would like to point out the excellent music score! It is the first HP with a soundtrack not composed by senior maestro John Williams. Well one can say, that successor Patrick Doyle made a really great job, and I decided to buy the soundtrack CD before the last line of the end titles vanished from the screen.