Pedestriantum!

"Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire", written by Steven Kloves and J.K. Rowling; directed by Mike Newell.

It's tough adapting wildly popular books for the screen. The outsized "Harry Potter" books have proven especially vexing, provoking a tug of war between the letter of the law, and the spirit. The first two films, directed by Chris Columbus, opted for the former, producing efforts long on exposition and short on character. The third, directed by Alfonso Cuarón, breathed fresh magic into the series, enriching the fantastic imagery and expanding the personalities of the characters. Mr. Cuarón passed on directing this installment, and we have a new freshman for the franchise - Mike Newell, the director of "Four Weddings and a Funeral".

Sadly, the invigorating effect of the third film hasn't passed on to "Goblet", and we've returned to exposition-land. There was a good opportunity here to transform Rowling's unwieldly plot into a more streamlined vehicle. Unfortunately, most of the bones have been jettisoned, and the fat retained instead. We're left to watch two and a half hours of introductions, ceremonies and lengthy speeches.

Dozens of half-muttered asides are scattered about to explain the various potions, rules, and dignitaries that litter the plot. It's hard to believe that it would make much sense, much less create a compelling tale, for the non-initiated. We're drawn into a world-wide Quidditch match, only to be awkwardly shoved to the post-game festivites without seeing so much as a single play. Aside from some athletic uniforms, who would know what that gargantuan meeting was for without reading the book?

This is all done with grand flourish, though the effect soon becomes deadening. The Big Game. The Bigger Dance. The Biggest Game, and bigger and bigger and bigger still, though we have little sense what any of this means to the characters, or to the forces of darkness that lurk beneath all of these stories. Human moments glimmer here and there as our heroes struggle with their budding emotions and self-awareness, but these are rare, buried in the pomp. There are some standout action sequences, too - Harry's battle with a ferocious dragon is exciting, and the climax retains some of its emotional force, but for the most part the proceedings are fairly dull.

Until the filmmakers feel courageous enough to leave some of the imagery to the audience's imaginations, and return the focus to the identifiable, human elements of the stories, we're in for some dispiriting films indeed.