Movie: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

As I said in my last post, I absolutely loved this chapter of the Harry Potter saga. Oh how I loved thee, let me count the ways:

1) Much lighter tone was mightily appreciated – I laughed a lot during this one and was happy about that. This movie had a lot of humor and it was all very well done without being over the top.
2) Introduction of new student characters – I liked how the movie didn’t concentrate on new magic, but rather concentrated on the students. And not just the ones we already knew, but it introduced a bunch of “new” ones that never had a focus in the previous three chapters. It was a pleasure to finally have faces for Parvati Patil, Cho Chang. And it was a delight to see how much the old characters have changed physically – especially Neville Longbottom. He got TALL.
3) Focus on character, not effects – sure, there were plenty of effects in this movie, but I was really happy that the movie focused on the troubles between Harry and Ron, Ron and Hermione, etc. as opposed to showing us a bunch of new spells with no substance.
4) Greatest school dance scene since “Sixteen Candles”. The part that had me grinning was when Hermione was yelling at Ron. It wasn’t THERE confrontation that had me laughing – it was the two girls comforting another girl in the background. SO high school. I loved it.

Just a really well done movie and I hope the same screenwriter and director get to participate in the fifth movie. Which they better get cracking on if they haven’t already. Because judging from the looks of Ron and Harry without their shirts on, they’ll not be looking like kids too much longer.

4 1/2 glances at the pensieve out of five.