Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005): C

Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) returns to Hogwarts for his fourth year in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, an installment that’s as gawky and shallow as its gangly-looking early-teen protagonists. Truncating sizeable chunks of J.K. Rowling’s enormous tome to accommodate its 157-minute running time, director Mike Newell (Four Weddings and a Funeral) appropriates the dark tone of Alfonso Cuarón’s sterling Prisoner of Azkaban but excises nearly all of its puberty-related subtext, instead wasting copious time and energy on Ron’s (Rupert Grint) not-so-secret affection for bookish Hermione (Emma Watson), the Triwizard tournament between Hogwarts and two other schools, and the rebirth of Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes). It’s all a lot of CG sound and fury signifying nothing, as Newell finds himself so beholden to his source material’s stacked-deck narrative – what’s the point of even pretending Harry’s in danger anymore? And why bother setting up perilous situations, only to fall back on pathetic deus ex machina solutions? – that he forgets to give his fantastic tale any deeper meaning. Though to be fair, it must have taken some sort of black magic to lead Newell to create a Potter film so bloated and joyless that it makes one pine for the bland mediocrity of Chris Columbus.