Harry Potter e l'Ordine della Fenice

For the avid Harry Potter reader the whole suspense leading up to HP Order of the Phoenix can be summed up in the word "how". How are they going to translate a nearly 900 page book to the screen, how are they going to tie together a storyline that in the 5th book breaks into dozens of streams like a mighty river coming to its delta.

This seemingly impossible task is well accomplished by astute summation of plot and concentration of action. Also, the heart and soul of the book, i.e. the thematic spirit of the story and Rowling's shining gift for characterization are given the fullest support in this film more so than in any previous HP movie.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix basically involves Harry being persecuted by the government for telling a truth they refuse to believe all while dealing with the same feelings of teen angst and emerging love that any ordinary teen finds stressful and consuming. Only through the love and dedication of family and especially friends does Harry come across the means to fight back against the government, elude his enemies and make some sense of his emotional turmoil.

Most reader's will come out of the theater saying "I wish they had shown this or that." However, all will leave satisfied that they have been treated to a faithful rendering brilliantly acted and directed. All the HP movies are a "good watch" but in this one we get a great movie.

We have the advantage of going to our HP movies with a non-reader and she was, to say the least, blown away and pronounced it a near classic. My daughter and myself have read and reread the books many times over and came out limp from exhilaration, our keen anticipation very much fulfilled.

A few highlights: The acting is best ever. The three principles push themselves to a new level. My favorite new characters were Imelda Staunton as Delores Umbridge, excellent (you'll love to hate her) and Natalia Tena as Tonks. Natalia is sheer delight. She is the penultimate punk rock witch girl(think Dead Milkmen here). And Helena Bonham Carter is in her medium (she played the witch Morganna in the movie Merlin) as the dangerous and demented Bellatrix LeStrange.

Battle scenes: breathtaking. Commraderie: The only HP that actually caused me to get teary so heartfelt are the portrayals of friendship and family.

See the film knowing that unless you want a 10hour movie some things are going to have to go. Leave having enjoyed a film that takes the beans and water and instead of a nice large coffee treats one to a perfectly concentrated, most artfully brewed and extremely tasty espresso. It has been said before but truth is truth: BEST YET!

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) is brought back to school where he faces a possible expulsion after using magic in the real world. Dumbledore (Jim McManus) comes to his defense and soon the two of them are warning people of the return of Lord Voldemort.

As I've said in the reviews for the previous films, I haven't read any of the stories so I honestly can't compare the movie to the book. With that said, I did find the previous installment to be an extremely entertaining movie and certainly the best of the series to date. This fifth film is certainly a major step backwards and sadly there are way too many boring moments to make it a complete winner.

Again, perhaps I would have picked up on more things had I been familiar with the book but I personally found the majority of the first half to be quite boring without too many interesting things going on. I honestly thought there was very little character development and I thought too many of the scenes just kept dragging on with dialogue that just wasn't all that interesting or thrilling.

The film does finally pick up during its final act and this is where thing get really good. The final battles almost rival what we saw in the previous film and there's no question that they pack a lot of energy and excitement. They also benefit from some wonderful special effects that really put you in the middle of the action and blend perfectly well with the cast members. Speaking of the cast, a lot of talented actors keep getting added to the series and once again everyone is quite impressive. Regulars like Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman and others return to their roles quite nicely and people like Emma Thompson, Gary Oldman and David Thewlis are of great value.

So many great parts were skipped over, rushed with ridiculous cliché transition scenes, or simply changed because, apparently, it's impossible to include everything. But what can anyone reasonably expect?

I went into this expecting exactly what I saw, it's still just a tad annoying hearing people talk about how impossible it would be to follow the book. It's not impossible at all. Look at the matrix 2&3, look at pirates of the caribbean 2&3, look at LOTR (it's all one continuous story). Lots of "stories" have had to be split up into multiple films and they all worked great. It's just a tad short-sighted to say it wouldn't work with a harry potter film. I think a lot of what people enjoy is looking at the wizard world, seeing cool looking spells, and generally learning more about everything to do with the harry potter universe. You don't get much of that when a 26 hour read is condensed into a 2.5 hour film. I personally would love to see more of the "boring" parts of the book simply because it's interesting seeing a high-budget Hollywood interpretation of what was in the book. Maybe it's just me, but I wouldn't be the least bit disappointed if the film-makers simply came out and said "this book is too long to put into a single film with out leaving out a lot of the book and changing a lot of other parts, so we're releasing it in two films." It's completely understandable. It's an 800 page book! LOTR books were only 400-600 pages and the films were considerably longer than any of the harry potter films.

Overall, it was a decent enough movie though. Great special effects, good enough acting (I wouldn't go so far as to say it was amazing). I'd say it's basically a standard high-budget film. Entertaining to watch, well worth my $10 so I could come and complain how it was nothing like the book :)

Within the first 5 minutes you can tell the series has undergone a dramatic tone shift and I have to say I think thats appropriate since Voldemorts return at the end of Goblet of Fire means that it's time to put aside childish things. The big bad men are here and they don't care about hurting children. it's time to get nasty.

Gone is the frivolity of the first couple of movies where magic was cool and everything in this new and magical world was just wonderful to behold, a la World of Disney. The new director has taken some risks with style and approach and they've paid off brilliantly. Order of the Phoenix is probably the darkest of the five movies we've had so far, even more so than Azkhaban which was a step in the right direction for where the series would eventually be heading. There's very little "fun" in Phoenix and you can see why. The Dark Lord is back, it's no laughing matter and this movie actually sells that fact.

This (in the movie world at least) is where Harry Potter crosses the line from kids movie to grown ups movie.

Harry now has some serious mental scars (as well as his actual one of course) since the events of the previous movie which while lighter than Azkhaban, followed on well from that movie. The Ministry of Magic is in denial about Voldermorts return and are trying to control the flow of rumour stemming from the events of Goblet. To this end we have new teacher and Ministry stooge Dolores Umbridge. Pink and fluffy on the outside, crunchy and evil on the inside. She makes no qualms about re-ordering the law at Hogwarts putting the kybosh on anything even remotely fun and making the students lives a complete misery. What she put Harry through in detention was simply pure evil.

She wasn't quite how I pictured her from the book but Imelda Staunton played her with a deliciously bitter/sweet twist, all charming and proper in her righteous delusions with that "stab you in the back" thing going on. She was a nasty piece of work.

It is a shame that a lot of the content of the book was missing but it was a big book and although I can't put my finger on what wasn't in the movie (I read it a while ago now) it does sometimes feel that there should have more substance to a few areas, mainly the characterisation of some of the characters. Most of the major bits I remember from the book were in the movie. There's a pace here we haven't seen before, a new musical approach also puts a new twist on things and I think Harry Potters world seems to fit it's new clothes well. I'm eagerly anticipating what's next as I hear David Yates is also directing the Half Blood Prince (last I heard anyway) and since that book has zombies in it I think the new dark style will suit it awesomely thank you very much.

The characters all look much older than they're supposed to be in Phoenix but it also kind of works in it's favour. They all look like they have a bit more history and life experience behind them, they're coping with stuff that will age any kid and it shows. That's also testament to the acting as well. Here mostly all the acting is pretty good, Ron Harry and Hermione all put in good efforts obviously having gotten the hang of the whole acting lark. Gambon is good as Dumbledore but I do miss Richard Harris and keep playing what might have been his versions of Gambons scenes over in my head. When I read the books it's Harris I'm picturing. Helena Bonham Carter gives a kooky insane kind of air to Bellatrix Lestrange (must get that from hubby Tim Burton) who was a pretty good character. One thing about this film though is that the actual Order of the Phoenix isn't in it all that much really. A flaw that wasn't in the book. The line about Snape being in the order, if you missed it you wouldn't even know he was in the order at all and a subsequent scene later on might seem confusing.

Kreacher was well done I though, coming across as a real miserable old bugger which was appropriate. The producers apparently weren't going to put him in the movie at all but JK Rowling said they'd be stuffing themselves up for the final movie if they did that.

All in all I think Phoenix is the best so far of the five movies, followed by Azkhaban, Goblet, then the other two in no particular order.

Now I've just got hold of The Deathly Hallows and although it's quarter past five I'm off to bed so see you later....

When I first walked into the movie, my expectations were not very high. The first two movies, I thought, were the best of the series mainly due to Richard Harris' dead-on portrayal of Dumbledore and screenplays that closely followed the original books. Though the third and fourth movies were very artistic and dramatic, I couldn't really connect to them in the way i had with the books. They glossed over many of the little things that made the Harry Potter series so magical in the first place, focusing on a select few plot lines and limiting dialog to only what was necessary to further the story.

As a result they've felt more like a collage of scenes, a series of puzzle pieces, thrown at the viewers faster than they can piece together, just leading up to a final confrontation. Pacing has certainly been an issue, leaving fans feeling disjointed, and those new to the series confused as to what exactly is going on. In this respect, Order of the Phoenix was very similar to the previous two movies. As a Hollywood film, it deserves praise, bringing this amazing world to the big screen, telling a compelling tale, and keeping the viewers glued to their seats for the duration of the movie. However, to the die hard fans of the books, you will undoubtedly be disappointed.

Many scenes that one would think invaluable to the story have been cut, replaced by the hasty filling in of plot holes. And while it pains me to ignore some of my favorite scenes from the book being left on the cutting room floor (St. Mungo's, Harry's Quibbler interview, the Quidditch fight, etc.), I realize that yes, not everything could be included in the movie. But in this watered down version of the book, there seems to be something missing. We still have all the drama and excitement, but some of the magic just seems to be gone.

Aside from Evanna (couldn't have made a more perfect Luna), the kids give simply average performances, never really reaching the full potential put forth by JK Rowling's writing. The same goes for Gambon, who seems to have ignored the calm, all knowing, endearing idea of who Dumbledore is, in favor of a more erratic yet powerful headmaster. Sure, this works well in the more dramatic scenes (specifically the final battle), but otherwise, his performance falls flat, lacking the eye twinkling charm we came to love from the late Richard Harris. Thankfully, Imelda Staunton more than makes up for this in an amazing portrayal of Dolores Umbridge, one of the more fully realized characters of the movie. As for the rest of the cast, it's largely hit or miss, determined by how each scene is written.

Overall, I would certainly recommend the movie for everyone, fan or not, as it really was a well made movie, despite a few wooden actors and some bad dialog. But when looking at the books, one really can't help but think how much more potential this movie could've had.