A must-see, a you're-crazy-not-to-watch-this for the book's readers

Rating: 9/10 (19 December 2005)

The movie is about Harry Potter's fourth year in Hogwarts and that means we're going to see more troubles. It's so nice to see the kids growing up, especially the Weasley twins. They are the clown of the show and their appearances on screen are awaited. This year's highlight is the occurrence of the Triwizard Tournament held in Harry's school. Students from other wizarding schools came to compete. When Harry became one of the contestant, people's reactions varied from envy to worry. He had to work his way on this without the usual help from his pals. Meanwhile, he was also haunted by his recurring nightmare about Lord Voldemort.
What stands out from this movie was its intenseness. You barely had time to blink. I got a little nervous waiting for this movie because Alfonso Cuaron did a great job with the third movie and I was wondering whether or not this one will live to the expectation. But this movie turned out to be so much better, because without further ado it just moved on a high speed presenting the story of the amazing things that happen in Harry's magical world that we loved. These include the Quidditch World Cup that was so exciting to see.
We know that Harry's life at this point is more difficult than it's ever been and the story itself has been developed into a more serious phase, but somehow Mike Newell managed to deliver the funny scenes brilliantly. It was wonderful of him to put that amount of fun in this supposed-to-be-darker Harry Potter movie and still finding ways to make the movie as dark and scary as it supposed to be. Even though, due to the movie's speed, sometimes the nuance of one scene was so different than the next and when I wasn't ready for the change yet, it got me a little confused emotionally.
As for Ralph Fiennes, all I can say is, on the scene where Voldemort met Harry, I, indeed forgot that Harry's even there, maybe it's the charisma that did it, whether it's Fiennes' or Voldemort's. And I personally think that, the shots the camera took several times on Radcliffe (who was only squirming) while Fiennes was delivering Voldemort's words to other characters were simply to remind us that Harry was there and important to this scene as much as the villain was. But on the other hand, if the situation was created on purpose, and audiences were supposed to forget about Harry at that moment, the job's marvelously done, big thanks to Fiennes.