Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7607 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-07-24
• Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Arabic, English, Greek, Icelandic
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 151 minutes

Synopsis
Adults who may have been turned off by the more kid-friendly elements of the first two Potter films should sit up and cheer; this fourth installment of Harry's adventures at the magic school of Hogwarts is more mature and darker than its immediate predecessor. This year, Hogwarts is hosting the Tri Wizard festival, and there may be a plot afoot to off Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) during the proceedings. Hermione (Emma Watson) finds a man worthy of her in competing Russian Quidditch champion Viktor Krum (Stanislav Ivaneski), to the chagrin of Ron Weaselly (Rupert Grint) who, though growing into a fine, shaggy orange-haired figure of a lad, is still not quite mature enough to ask Hermione to the Yule ball. Krum's teacher may be involved in the dastardly get-Harry plot, which involves writhing snake tattoos, skull clouds, death-eaters, tournaments with live dragons, a submersible schooner, and a competing school of poised and beautiful girls run by Maxime (Frances De La Tour), who shares a romantic past with gamekeeper Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane). All the other favourites of the series are back as well, including Alan Rickman, Michael Gambon, Maggie Smith, and Gary Oldman, with Timothy Spall as the odious Wormtail, while a new addition to the A-list thespian roster is Ralph Fiennes. Director Mike Newell takes plenty of time to explore character development, but the story still gallops along at a breathless pace, with memorably intense moments involving fire-spewing dragons, dark magical rites, and near-drownings at the hands of slimy mer-people, all of which may prove too much for the youngest of viewers. Everyone else is advised to hold on tight.

Customer Reviews

Nearly Magic Harry
I don't really get the bad reviews of this. I am not a huge Harry Potter fan nor an adolesent though i have read all the books and enjoyed them fine. I have also seen all the film adaptations and thought, they weren't all that good actually. I felt they tried to put too much of the book in (and in Azkaban missed out one of the most important bits!) and the films coherence inevitably suffered.

This has easily been the best of the bunch - though not even my favourite of the books - the script is linear and Mr Potter even gets a few scenes off to allow the film insights into other characters.

The film looks good, the adult cast are superb and the kids...well, they are getting better. I also felt the darkness wasn't skipped on for a change.

Lay off, this was almost knockout film - instead it's a really enjoyable one that gets as much in of the book in its runnin time WITHOUT sacrificing the pace. Otherwise it would have been six years long.

It's a good fun film, so there!

Mediocre and misses a lot out from the book
Being a fan of the books I have so far felt the films have never quite lived up to the books but this is the worst attempt yet.

There are some good points :

Rupert Grint puts in a good performance as normal, better than the 'star' daniel radcliffe.

Tennent is phenomenal as barty crouch (for the ten minutes of screen time he gets)

The special effects are fantastic and really bring the action scenes to life

Now the bad point:

The dialogue that was scripted for the characters does not accuratley reflect the book sometimes (Amos's gloating over Cedric being better than Harry is completley missing) this lft me feeling after the end of the film that the character development was minimal and stopped me caring when cedric died are not given the chance to really come to like or know him in the film. I could easily beleive that the script writers had never read the full book but had only read the back and been told what happens by others.

A visual treat but ultimatley unfulfilling, rent it dont buy it.

not for children
With this fourth movie we get as good an adventure as we got with the third one and some - just some - of the spirit of the book back as well.

The plot has been altered a lot again but at least we are given a satisfactory rendition of the cruel, dark atmosphere of the book. So dark in fact that the film is not suitable for younger children.

I will not discuss details further: this movie is well scripted, well directed, well filmed and very well acted, thoroughly enjoyable.

Unfortunately much of the sharp edged sarcasm of the book gets lost here: Miranda Richardson is just great but the script turn the evil character of the book into a nosy and a little nasty reporter and there is not a lot she can do about this.
This is true for nearly every character. Watch the film for the fun of it forgetting the book while you do it so that you can enjoy both of them.