To say I was disappointed by Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire when I first saw the film is a major understatement. My favorite parts of the book come right up front—the arrival of the Weasley’s to pick up Harry from the Dursley’s and the Quidditch World Cup—so seeing one part cut to barely a mention and the other cut completely made me, in a word, livid less than five minutes into the movie. After that, it didn’t have a chance with me. Granted, I know you can’t pack everything in a massive book like “Goblet of Fire” and have it fit in a movie less than four hours long; however, directors have a really terrible knack of looking at novels as starting points rather than blueprints. When they go hacking at a novel to cut the fat they inevitably cut out muscle and bone in their attempts to shorten a novel and make it more “cinematic.” Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is a perfect example of this. Director Mike Newell, a man best-known for directing Four Weddings and a Funeral and therefore the absolute worst person you could pick to direct a Harry Potter movie, hacks at J.K. Rowling’s novel not with a carving knife, but a machete. What’s left is a confusing mess. That said, I have to admit as my expectations lowered for DVD viewing I did enjoy the film more. It allowed me to focus more on the excellent effects, Oscar-nominated sets, and the much-improved acting of the kids, especially Daniel Radcliff. Still, there is a lot I don’t like about the film. Plot points are changed for no apparent reason other than to tinker which will have an impact on future adaptations of the remaining books. The music by Patrick Doyle (a very good, but in over his head, composer) is so inappropriate in parts it’s laughable as all of John Williams’ three previous scores, save for the scant use of “Hedwig’s Theme” here and there, is thrown out. Most everyone except Harry has their screen time reduced to almost cameo levels. This movie IS about Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, PERIOD. If you’re a fan of the books and can watch the movies as their own entity, you’ll enjoy Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. If you’re like me and have a problem separating the two, be sure to watch it more than once to appreciate what’s good about the movie and get past what’s so very, very wrong.