Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Going to movies with low expectations seems to work out for me.

I went into OotP thinking of the complete absence of exposition in Prisoner of Azkaban, and the Oh-Dear-Zarth-We're-Rushed (but we're going to spend a ridiculously long time on the dragon fight anyway) feel of Goblet of Fire.

I was pleasantly surprised; not thrilled, but satisfied.

First off, major kudos to Evanna Lynch, who plays Luna Lovegood. I've never been a fan of Luna - she just didn't seem like she belonged in the story. Evanna has, IMO, taken one of the weakest characters from the books and made her one of the most interesting supporting characters in the movies (doubly impressive since she's going up against Kenneth Branagh as Gilderoy Lockheart, Jason Isaacs as Lucius Malfoy, Gary Oldman... the list is a long one).

Further kudos to Bonnie Wright, who once again has left me with the impression that she's fully capable of handling Ginny as soon as the scriptwriters stop trimming her part. Mr. Kloves? She's due to date Harry next movie, and it isn't supposed to come out of nowhere. The whole bit with her actually facing up to Harry and telling him he's not being possessed by Voldy? Sorta important? Maybe?

The cast in general does a good job with whatever they're given to work with, however little it may be.

Which brings me to the weak point of the movie. They cut SO much out of the book. What it felt like to me was the Cliff Notes version of OotP. Most of the key points are there, but there's so much richness and depth missing.

Granted, a lot of what they cut can go without damaging the main story. Neville's plotline with meeting his parents, finding out Bellatrix is on the loose and becoming a better wizard because of it, and finally his role in the Department of Mysteries is a good one, but it adds only slightly to the main plot.

Sometimes, however, you feel like just one more minute of film time (or one minute less of overdone special effects) would have added so much. "Hey, a bunch of wizards just showed up at my door! I guess they must be friendly, even though I only recognize one of them and the last time I saw him he'd spent a year being impersonated by a Death Eater. Never mind that I just got attacked by a Dementor..."

Each movie I do tend to find one or two things that I think they did better than the book. In Chamber of Secrets I MUCH prefer the sequence of events at the climax to the one in the book (Ginny waking up before Fawkes heals Harry vs. after, etc.). In this one I like Sirius more than in the book. OK, he's still a little on the outside, and he's taking too many risks, but he's much warmer. You can really see why Harry gets so attached to him. OTOH... I don't like him being killed and then falling through the veil. Falling through the veil left his fate open-ended in the book (especially with those mirrors hanging around just waiting for Harry to remember them). But with the movie, well, "nothing stops the Killing Curse." He got hit with it by a powerful wizard. No loopholes there. He's dead, whatever the veil did to him afterwards.

Overall, this is neither the best nor the worst of the Harry Potter movies so far. It is a good, worthwhile movie, though a somewhat less worthwhile treatment of the book.