Unnecessarily Spoiled

Rating: 6/10 (10 August 2012)

Firstly I should say that I'm a big fan of the Harry Potter books, but that's not to say that I'm not able to enjoy the films in their own right - and I do enjoy all of the Harry Potter films, to differing extents.
The thing I find about The Goblet of Fire is that it could so easily have been better. There are just so many scenes that are spoiled by senseless additions, extreme over-acting, poor character decisions, or a combination of all three.
The over-acting is perhaps the worst thing about the film, and in particular by Emma Watson. She was excusably young in the first two films and did sufficiently well enough for an actress of her years. But the third film marked quite a dramatic change (for me, at least) and her acting significantly improved.
So it was something of a surprise that it should so suddenly revert to once again being a series of exasperated gasps, irritated sighs, eyebrows with a life of their own, and lots of anger. This is when she isn't speaking like she'd been raised as royalty rather than the daughter of two dentists, or as though she's going on 40 years old.
And speaking of anger, one very jarring annoyance about this movie is Dumbledore's character. I appreciate that this might not be such an issue for viewers who are unfamiliar with the books but it's even a stark contrast to how he is portrayed in all of the other films. And when he isn't shouting at everyone, he's always looking in the wrong direction towards whichever digitally-added effect he's meant to be interacting with. It's just dreadful, really.
Beyond the over-acting there are many other scenes where things simply don't make sense. Krum is the world's best Seeker and in the books he is (as would be logical) slim and gangly. Yet in the film he's some kind of beefcake. Or in the first challenge, the dragon breaks free, and not a single teacher or official acts to control the situation.
There are many examples like the dragon one, whereby scenes were added, but added carelessly and which made no sense. To my mind it would have made sense to either keep more of the original book in the film, or to take extra care when adding new scenes so that the story or characters aren't compromised. But instead of this approach they just butchered the book to its bare minimum and added many "just because" scenes instead.
In fact, they took a book with a great deal of sub-plots and interesting characters, and turned it into nothing more than a showcase for the three main Triwizard Challenges.
All in all the film is disappointing. Later films (particularly the final two) were to show that all of the actors and actresses were capable of so much more, and indeed even the previous film to this one showed this, too.
So, to my mind, this film's lacklustre entry into the series isn't really forgivable, and I'm glad that the director didn't return to ruin any more of the series.