Welcome back to Hogwarts, a school with such a shameful record of appointing teachers who are actually murderous demons in disguise that it should have been shut down by Ofsted. Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) is now in his fourth year, and, wouldn't you just know it, the malevolent minions of Voldemort are once again plotting to give him a few more scars to match the one on his forehead. Just as frightening for Harry and his pubescent pals are the exchange students who are boarding at Hogwarts for an inter-school magic contest. Ron (Rupert Grint) is ooh la la-ing at the jeunes filles from France's Beauxbatons Academy, while Hermione (Emma Watson) gets some eye-candy, too, in the shape of the Durmstrang Institute's crewcut stormtroopers.

This is the most gratifying film of the series. Indeed, it's the first one that's been made as a distinct entity in its own right, as opposed to a scene-by-scene re-enactment of the source novel. J K Rowling's notoriously elaborate mystery plot has been pared back to basics, so although the book is a disc-slipping 630 pages, the film never feels as bloated as the previous instalments. The action set-pieces are genuinely thrilling, hence the 12A certificate, and the scenes without any broomsticks are almost as good. Mike Newell has made no bones about sending his young stars to acting classes, and it's a move that's paid off: the boys' adolescent awkwardness with the opposite sex recalls the same director's Four Weddings and A Funeral. Mind you, the idea that Hermione might fancy Ron seems a lot more convincing in the book than in a film where, frankly, she's out of his Quidditch league.