Empire reviews 'GoF' DVD for British fans

Even though Newell’s adaptation runs to more than two-and-a-half hours, the book is such a doorstopper that screenwriter Steve Kloves had to ditch more material this time around. Harry’s annual confinement with his ghastly Dursley relations and Hermione’s house-elf-liberation campaign is gone. While he was at it, it’s a pity he didn’t also delete tabloid hackette Rita Skeeter — however much one likes Miranda Richardson — since she obviously functions as author J. K. Rowling’s dig at celebrity-stalking gossips, adding nothing more than running-time the story doesn’t need.

As it is, there’s too much contrasting material with which to contend: the life-or-death challenges of the Triwizard competition are interspersed with a host of new characters and their sinister or serio-comic sub-plots, school lessons, the agenda of yet another eccentric new Defence Against The Dark Arts professor in Brendan Gleeson’s fierce Mad-Eye Moody, Potter sidekick Ron’s sulks, swotty Hermione’s makeover and Harry’s blushing attempts to ask a girl to a dance…

Consequently, the story editing goes through some distinctly choppy patches. It looks as if several scenes were filmed at greater length, surviving in quick snippets that are frequently unnecessary. The movie Newell set out to make — eccentric comedy-cum-Hitchcockian conspiracy — can only be glimpsed briefly, before that beast of a plot charges back into shot, demanding attention.