Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - 5.5

Goblet of Fire is easily my favorite book in the Harry Potter series. It's long and detailed and contains Rowling's best action scenes to date. The movie version is enjoyable enough, but doesn't come close to living up to it's source material. The fight scenes are a good example. They get a lot of screen time in the movie, but are mostly ho-hum. I suppose the dragon scene captures a little bit of the excitement from the book. Harry sitting in his tent waiting for the fight to start builds tension beautifully, but the "oh no I dropped my broom and now I'm hanging on to a ledge gimmick" is painfully weak, and kind of kills that excitement. The rest of the fight scenes were pretty forgettable, but I wouldn't say they were outright bad in any way. The thing is, these pedestrian fight scenes are probably the best part of the film. The love story plot is poorly laid out and offered no insight into the characters unless you already know the story. The mandatory class-room scene didn't accomplish much. The quiddich was short and slightly sub-standard also.

The main reason I'm a little disappointed with the mediocrity found here is that the third movie was so good. Prisoner of Azkaban is the only one of the four films that tried to stretch the borders of the book a little bit, and for that it clearly remains the best movie of the series. Goblet of Fire plays like an abridged version of a good book that everyone in the theatre has already read. It evokes memories of a great story, but it fails to tell the story itself. The first 2 movies in the series did the same thing, so I'll lump it in with them, all sitting a big step behind the third film. Goblet of Fire is fun, and I'd say, worth watching. Just be sure to go in expecting pop-corn cinema instead of real quality movie making.