GIVE 'EM HELL, HARRY

REVIEWED - HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE: Despite some good scares, the fourth installment in the blockbuster franchise left grumpy muggle Donald Clarke largely unthrilled

APPARENTLY this Harry Potter, the first to receive a certificate condemning adults to supervisory attendance, is much "darker" than the previous episodes. Hang on, wasn't the last one supposed to be "darker" too? Come to think of it, I seem to recall that Batman Begins, Spiderman 2 and Revenge of the Sith were all sold as "darker" beasts than their predecessors. Dark is the new black.

Well, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is certainly murky. Taking place either at night or beneath looming clouds and set in gothic corridors, submarine reed outcrops and possessed mazes, Mike Newell's film is the greyest thing to fall upon cinema screens since the early work of Ingmar Bergman.

I suppose the publicists didn't mean us to take their promises of dimness quite so literally and, sure enough, there are satisfactorily horrible sequences throughout the picture: Ralph Fiennes's reappearance as the diabolical Voldemort and the attack by toothy merpersons should nicely unnerve weedier children.

Thank goodness for those occasional invigorating spasms of horror. Like the dreary first two films (and unlike Alfonso Cuarón's Prisoner of Azkaban, which was pretty good) Goblet of Fire will prove hard work for those viewers not steeped in Potter lore. Watching this tiring series, one gets the impression that the directors and writers have been hampered by the knowledge that readers of the books may - in a similar fashion to those opera fanatics who bring the score to performances - spend the few hours carefully checking that every cadenza and crescendo makes it onto the screen.

Unfortunately the fourth novel in the sequence weighs 40 pounds and contains more pages than the Mexico City phone directory, so there was never a serious possibility of fitting all the action into any movie, even one this overlong. The film-makers must, however, be aware that certain set-pieces - no matter how irrelevant to the progress of the flimsy plot - should, for fear of juvenile rioting, be worked into the drama. Thus we begin with a startlingly brief visit to the Quidditch World Cup, with its frolicking Irish stereotypes and unexplained outbursts of euphoria.

The children, all of whom now look practically middle aged, then return to Hogwarts, where the teachers are gearing up for the Triwizard Tournament, into which Harry, though technically too young, is mysteriously entered. Later there is a Christmas ball at which something happens to Hermione that upsets her and confuses those, such as this muggle, who haven't read the book. And on it trundles, somehow conspiring to appear rushed and sluggish at the same time.

No matter. One might as well, as an atheist, offer criticism of somebody else's religious service. The films seem to work perfectly well for Ms Rowling's followers, and even those who aren't among the acolytes should have fun getting buried by the now customary avalanche of celebrity cameos. Of the new faces, the perennially charismatic Brendan Gleeson, playing a professor with a mad eye, is the most impressive, while Jarvis Cocker, a rock star at the Hogwarts ball, is the most unlikely.

Aware that the film is something millions will savour, we award it three insincere stars and blissfully rejoice that we are now more than halfway through the seven-film cycle. The end is in sight.