Perfectly captures the shift in tone.

Rating: 9/10 (29 January 2016)

In this review I'm focusing on Character Portrayal, Differences from the book, and Mood.
The brilliance of the books and the story, in general, is how the characters grow and deal with their adversaries as children. They experience hormones and puberty in the background behind the main story and it never has to actually be brought up--it's just subtly recognized by the audience. The actors all capture this so well--whether it's Ron and Harry dealing with emotions of jealousy and becoming interested in girls or Hermoine growing as a friend and as an individual who also starts to become interested in boys. I entirely believe all of the relationships between the characters and how they develop in this movie, even if there are glaring differences from the book.
Now I think we can all agree that there are many great parts left out from the book, such as Ludo Bagman, Winky, the Crouchs' full story, S.P.E.W., blast-ended skrewts, crazy wizards at the World Cup, and loads more, but what the movie chose to include they did an amazing job with. Ralph Fiennes as Voldemort remains today amazingly iconic and they captured his resurrection, Priori Incantatem, and Cedric's death beautifully and painfully (much better than Deathly Hallows Pt. 2's unnecessarily drawn out "The Flaw in the Plan" chapter). The other thing is that unlike many other of the adaptations is that they didn't really change anything, they just left things out. What I hate is when people rewrite parts of the story that worked perfectly fine in the book for seemingly no reason. That's why I'm fine with the edits in this one--it's just cut down and not tampered with.
What makes this one of my favorites out of the 8 is its mood. The atmosphere created by the soundtrack and the pacing is the most unique out of any of the others. The only other 2 I found that matched its success and consistency in this regard were The Prisoner of Azkaban and The Deathly Hallows Pt. 1. I may be alone here, but I like this soundtrack in particular because of the incredibly sweet moments where the strings take over and play sweeping melodies that capture the grandeur of this installment especially in the Priori Incantantem and return from the graveyard scenes ("Death of Cedric" track). Not to mention the Tri-Wizard Tournament motifs (Played in all Task scenes starting with "Golden Egg") and the Hogwarts band with it's comic relief ("Hogwarts' March).
By the end of the movie you've expertly experienced the subtle shift from lightness to darkness and you understand how everything really has changed for the characters. The Wizarding World is no longer going to be the beautiful, novel, safe haven it was before (Shoutout to JK Rowling for perfectly contrasting that with the fact that the international schools and Hogwarts form a bond over an amazing year and a group understanding of the tragedy behind them, the danger ahead of them, and the importance of friendship and cooperation despite differences between each other).
This installment really is the bridge between the light-heartedness of the first 3 and the seriousness of the last 3 and I'll always love how well it captured that.