"Ron, wait, it's not what it looks like, really!"

Harry Potter matures from boy wizard to young adult – or at least adolescent – wizard in … and the Goblet of Fire. Now fourteen and in the fourth year of his wizard training, Harry is faced with dragons, merpeople, young love, the paparazzi, and one serious whack-job of a Dark Lord but, curiously, not a lot of actual schoolwork in his most action-packed adventure yet.

This time around Hogwarts is playing host to the Tri-Wizard Tournament, in which one student from each of three wizarding schools competes in a series of harrowing tasks. The prize? Eternal glory. (And a shiny trophy, just to make it tangible.) The rules say you have to be seventeen to enter. Whew, that lets Harry out. Except not. I mean, come on, a movie called Harry Potter and the Cool Tournament He Watched That One Time probably wouldn’t have raked in $102 mill in its opening weekend so of course he ends up in the thick of it. Harry swears he didn’t enter his name in the competition. So who did? Could somebody be out to get him?

Uh, yeah. Try to keep up, will you?

When Moody warned them to be careful with their wands or they could put an eye out, the students took it seriously.

Complicating matters is the fact that Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) is having some disturbing dreams about his old nemesis Voldemort. (He’s the guy who tried to kill Harry when he was a baby. Think about it: Harry’s had an archenemy since he was one year old! Not even Superman can say that!) Then there’s this year’s special guest professor, Mad-Eye Moody (Brendan Gleeson) who is, perhaps, a bit tightly wound.  Add in the crush Harry has on a pretty school-mate who’s dating one of the other competitors, his best-friend Ron’s (Rupert Grint) jealous resentment, and the fact that he needs a date for the Yule Ball and you can see Harry has a lot on his plate.

With Goblet of Fire, author J.K. Rowlings handed Warner Bros. the blueprint for a blockbuster, the most movie-ready of all the Potter books. Replace the dragons with, I don’t know, experimental laser cannons, and this could be a James Bond film, complete with sneering Euro-trash and a monologuing super-villain. Screenwriter Steve Kloves has finally struck (mostly) the right balance between what to cut, what to change and what to lift directly from the book. For instance, rather than several scenes in which the nasty Professor Snape harasses Harry, we see Harry and his friends whispering in class – and, by the way, advancing the plot while they do so – while Snape takes sadistic glee in busting them for it over and over again. Kind of a neat way to remind us that Snape is not a fan without beating us over the head with it. (Though heads are beaten.)

And I thought Hitler ruined that mustache for everybody.

Director Mike Newell is a mixed blessing here. He has a nice touch with the humorous moments and seems to revel in the pageantry of some of the big set pieces, like the truly impressive Quidditch World Cup arena at the movie’s open and the glittering Yule Ball. But as we don’t actually see any of the Quidditch match that scene has no payoff, and most of the other big scenes stretch on too long. The first two tasks of the Tri-Wizard Tournament in particular could have used a little trimming, while the third task and the climactic battle it leads to needed more time, more suspense and more emotion. That section had some of the most moving scenes in any of the books and I really feel like Newell squandered them. I have to wonder why. A few seconds for Harry to digest and react to certain events, another few for somebody to explain exactly what happened so it wouldn’t seem so deus-ex-machina – would that have really broken the bank in terms of pacing or running time? I felt like Newell was standing there tapping his watch, waiting for me to leave the theater.

That disappointment aside, Goblet of Fire is probably the deftest adaptation yet of one of Rowlings’ books. It could have used some of the style and atmosphere that made last year’s Prisoner of Azkaban a pretty great film, but it really is quite good. Rated PG-13 for scariness, it’s the movie that takes Harry from cute kid to angsty adolescent. Our little wizard is growing up.

Gorilla Pants rating: 3 out of 4 bananas