Product: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)
Rating: 3.0
A Disappointment
I like Rowling's Harry Potter novels very much. She has managed to do something extremely difficult: maintain a high level in a continuing series, with character and plot development that keep interest up and avoid repetition. Unfortunately, that means that by the fourth in the series, the saga has gotten so complex that its installments cannot be made into films of a reasonable length without leaving out enormous chunks of what Rowling has written. The result is a storyline in the film that is impossible to make sense of if you haven't read the novel first and have it firmly in mind. The cast remains at a high level, but things move at such a clip that no one has an opportunity to achieve anything of distinction.