Spoiler Alert

Alas, the order in which I like the Harry Potter movies from "best" to "not as much"is:

4) The Goblet of Fire
3) The Chamber of Secrets
2) The Sorceror's Stone
1) The Prisoner of Azkaban

Why "alas" you ask? Because the order in which I like the Harry Potter books from "best" to "not as much" is:

6) The Philosopher's Stone
5) The Chamber of Secrets
4) The Prisoner of Azkaban
3) The Half Blood Prince
2) The Goblet of Fire
1) The Order of the Phoenix

And why does the fourth book, this "Goblet of Fire" rank so highly? Because it is the ludicrously imaginative and seriously pivotal hinge of the series, in which what has come before (including the another year, another adventure tone) in the first three gives way to the thrilling and inexorable inertia of the last three installments (trust me when I say if Rowling put out the seventh book tomorrow, on a Sunday less than five months after the release of the last Potter book it would sell as many copies as the sixth- the desire to read it as soon as possible that strong as a result of the potent conclusion of "Half Blood Prince," including the people who weren't a 100% into this installment), all a result of the pivotal fourth installment. Unfortunately like much of the second film, "Goblet of Fire" just sort of happens, with no flow from scene to scene or set piece to set piece until the last half hour, which is rousing and satisfying; unfortunately the fourth movie forgoes that too, apparently to cram as much in as possible in two and a half hours. Alas it does not work and the fourth Potter movie comes up short, not bad but certainly not great. It's got some great stuff, and some fine British humor and spirit, but it's all a tad jumbled and lacks the punch of the book, which features some of Rowling's best and emotionally satisfying writing.

Hopefully the makers of the fifth movie, "The Order of the Phoenix" (due I think in 2007) will get it right, or at least righter.

And for the record, I like the densely plotted, slyly written, and increasily sophisticated (prose wise) Potter books. It ain't majestic and overtly mythological like Tolkien's LOTR saga or refined (upper crusty, ableit enjoyably so) like Susanna Clarke's "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell but Rowling is doing something interesting and satisfying nonetheless with her gentle yet increasingly dark popular fiction that has become modern pop culture myth.