Ho-hum Harry returns series to previous tedium

Rating: 5/10 (5 December 2005)

After a brief respite of cinematic respectability with "Prisoner of Azkaban", the Harry Potter series is back squarely in the well-traversed realm of pointless over-the-top special effects and achingly obvious character development. The third film in the series had lifted it from the drek, had made something special out of this series. I have to admit I have not read the books, I don't know if the quality of the books follows the quality of the films in any way. But I do think with this story, "Goblet of Fire" could have been much better, more substantial in some ways. For instance, it doesn't seem to know what to do with Ron and Hermione. They pop up every once in a while mainly as distractions to Harry's quest. There is a too lengthy sequence involving a ball-room dance (yes, there really is) and then we don't see them for what seems like a half hour.
Fiennes' sorcerer is a bit under-whelming. I kept waiting for the makeup transformation to finish, couldn't believe that was their final concept. He plays it straight evil, which means there's not much to grab onto here.
I heard that the same director is working on the 5th film. That would be a mistake. This film's magic feels decidedly.... unmagical. It feels like one special effects shot after another. They don't even capture the magic as well as Chris Columbus' stale Christmas dinner sequence in the first film, for bog's sake. Every time they went to do one of their challenges, I thought it was a final boss in a video game. Too much frenetic effects, not enough feeling behind it.
For all of that, it was watchable, and probably will delight the hardcore Harry Potter fan-base. But for those of us who are dragged to the films by our children or significant others, this film does not offer up the kind of unexpected joys that the third film did. For fans only IMHO.