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In my review of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, I noted that the films marked a decisive turning point for the franchise. That shift becomes even more pronounced in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which discards some familiar comforts we had come to expect while introducing new elements that fundamentally reshape the series and set the tone for the films that follow.
In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry returns to Hogwarts just as the legendary Triwizard Tournament is revived, bringing students from rival wizarding schools to compete in a dangerous magical contest, and when the Goblet unexpectedly selects Harry as an underage fourth champion, he is thrust into the spotlight and forced to face a series of life-threatening challenges while mysterious signs suggest that darker forces are beginning to stir beyond the school’s walls.
For me personally, The Goblet of Fire is a deeply divisive film. It delivers some of the strongest storytelling in the series up to that point, yet it is also, at times, genuinely unpleasant to look at — most notably in the opening scene, where we learn Harry is staying with Ron, shot through such an aggressively desaturated filter that even the grass appears unwell. These are clearly deliberate choices by the filmmakers, and I’m sure they would justify them by arguing that the muted palette reflects Voldemort’s corrupting influence on the world, but plenty of films have dealt with villains far worse than Voldemort without resorting to visuals that resemble a washed-out Bob Ross painting.
It’s a shame, because with each installment the films grow grander in scale, and it’s obvious that enormous amounts of money are being poured into them. I even reviewed Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince back in 2009, and it’s oddly amusing — and a little frustrating — to realize that, nearly twenty years later, I still feel exactly the same way about these later entries in the series.
But aside from the visuals, there is plenty that this movie gets right. Harry, Ron, and Hermione have clearly hit puberty, and with it come all the expected hormonal complications. Ron and Harry fall into a feud, driven largely by Ron’s jealousy of Harry, which adds a slightly sour note to the film but also feels refreshingly realistic. The boys also begin to see Hermione for who she really is: a stunning young woman rather than just one of the gang. This is most memorably captured in a scene that squarely fits the classic “staircase reveal” trope, as Hermione descends the stairs in a beautiful dress, leaving both Ron and Harry — and perhaps the audience — to realize that she’s no longer a little girl, momentarily making the film feel like it has wandered into an ’80s teen movie.
Love pops up in all sorts of unexpected ways in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and none more charming than Hagrid falling head over heels for a woman even taller than him. It’s hilarious, heartwarming, and surprisingly cute—something I never would have pegged Robbie Coltrane for. Yet he owns it effortlessly, and it only reinforces for me why Hagrid might just be the best character in the entire series.
The Triwizard Tournament in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is Hogwarts’ bold experiment in combining school spirit with extreme negligence: three magical schools revive a contest previously cancelled because teenagers kept dying, a flaming goblet legally conscripts a 14-year-old with no opt-out, and the tasks escalate from steal an egg from a dragon to participate in an underwater hostage crisis to enter a hedge maze packed with curses, monsters, and zero adult supervision, all culminating in a cup that turns out to be a murder portkey, a student’s death, the return of Voldemort, and an end-of-year feast that somehow still goes ahead, proving once and for all that Hogwarts’ real magic is surviving its own safety standards.
At the heart of “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” is, of course, the return of Voldemort. While his shadow has loomed over the previous three films, here he is fully resurrected and faces off with Harry in a tense showdown that the young wizard only narrowly survives. Ralph Fiennes makes a striking debut as the series’ ultimate villain, even with relatively limited screen time.
Perhaps the film’s greatest achievement is how it expands the scope of the series into a more interconnected saga. While it still follows the familiar, self-contained structure of its predecessors, the reappearance of characters like Wormtail and Lucius Malfoy lays the groundwork for a broader story and sets the stage for the high-stakes conflicts that the later films will deliver.
