Part 4 of the franchise, the kids are growing up

Rating: 6/10 (20 January 2015)

"Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" is film number 4 in the series and probably my 3rd favorite. Films number 1 and 3 are still better I believe. It is directed by Mike Newell ("Donnie Brasco", "Four Weddings and a Funeral"), the only film by him just like with Cuarón previously. It's adapted by Steve Kloves as usual from Joanne K. Rowling's novel. The film was Oscar-nominated for its art direction and it is the first movie that does not start at Potter's home with his aunt and uncle.
Basically, this film is another great adventure with more competitive aspects than the previous movies as Hogwarts takes places in a complex tournament (Triwizard Tournament) against other magic schools and we find out a bit about the Quidditch world cup and also about a companion for Hagrid. The addition of Robert Pattinson before his Twilight success and maybe with the role that helped him in becoming Edward is also worth a mention. Also, it has Brendan Gleeson, who is as much fun as always as a grumpy mentor to Harry, who, however, seems to have his very own interests as well. There's some cute humor like Dumbledore (played by Gambon again after Harris' death) telling Mad Eye Moody to keep an eye on Harry. Then, there is also some arguing going on between Ron and Harry and Hermione finds another potential love interest. For Harry, it was Ginny in the last movie, here it is the Asian girl. The arguing part, however, felt weak to me. It was undeveloped and just included to create some tension which never really added much to the film, however. Meanwhile, Harry and Ron are looking for female dancing partners as well.
The best part of the film was maybe the dragon egg sequence early on. Myrtle gets a short comeback too, but her role is much smaller than previously, which is fine as she is a character that never did too much for me anyway. Another criticism would be that Potter almost becomes too superhero-like for my taste here. That whole innocent schoolboy aspect seems almost completely gone and occasionally the way he is portrayed as the new messiah is slightly cringeworthy. All the different challenges are fun to watch though and there is really nobody in the cast who doesn't give an at least solid performance. Especially Fiennes and Gleeson work very well with their characters. The fight between Potter and Voldemort reminded me a bit of the light saber sequence from "Star Wars", so powerful and colorful, red vs. blue. One thing I was wondering about, however, was when there was all this trouble and hullabaloo with somebody missing from Azkaban in the third film and here nobody really recognized what was going on until Moody re-transforms into his real self?
It's probably not a perfect film, has a flaw here and there and may be worse than previous installments, but "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire", which runs for over 2.5 hours, is still a very entertaining watch I believe. Recommended.