Yet another tiring, and repetitive adventure with Harry Potter, this series feels like it's running out of steam!

Rating: 1/10 (9 July 2007)

This review contains some spoilers.
Warner Brothers highly anticipated Order of the Phoenix, had it's U.S. premiere in Los Angeles several days ago, and like many other industry insiders, I was given a peak of this film at Warner Brothers studios.
Now granted, I am not a fan of the books, since I have never read one. Could care less about what Hogwarts stands for, and don't see what the big fuss over an extremely deformed creature named Voldemort is all about and how "scary" the guy is supposed to be. I came into this film as an audience member and that's it.
When we begin the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter is being picked on by his cousin Dudley and his friends and is summarily attacked by a dementor. Harry is attacked by the dementors, and Harry fights them off again. (Didn't we already see this in the third film?) And, Harry is sent off to a wizard's court, where he is to be expelled from the wizarding school for destroying the Dementor in front of his cousin, when Harry's mentor, the shabbily dressed Dumbledore pleads with the Minstry of Magic to let Harry go back to school.
Then Harry is taken to the house of his godfather, Sirius Black, played by the fabulous Gary Oldman, where Harry meets the Order of the Phoenix, an group of wizards formed by Dumbledore, determined to fight off Harry's adversary Voldemort and his group of KKK dressed bad wizards called Death Eaters.
For two and a half hours, we get the same repetitive storyline as we did in the four previous Harry Potter films, except in this film, we get very little excitement until the end of the film, where Harry Potter and a large group of students he organized, called Dumbledore's Army fights off Voldemort and his group of wizards. The ending really didn't challenge me at all, and more frustrated myself and other members of the audience who were not as familiar with the events of the books as other people in the public are.
We get new characters including one of the most irritating private school teachers all dressed in pink. I just wanted to roll my eyes. The acting from most is serviceable but the film's talky plot line could bore some viewers over the two and a half hour course of the film.
Judging the film as a movie not as a book, The Order of the Phoenix felt like a rushed, and talkative film with very little excitement, except for the death of one of the prominent characters at the end of the only real action sequence in the film.
Many will be disappointed at the lack of action and exciting sequences in this film, as it is definitely the slowest film of these movies yet. The reaction was mixed at best, those familiar with the books seemed to follow the events better than those who have not read the books. In my opinion, films should stand on their own, even if you have not read the books, and so far, none of the Harry Potter films have been able to convert those who are not as familiar with the events of the books.
In the past I have not been kind with my reviews of the Harry Potter movies because they have not been able to truly explain to the film going public why they should invest their emotions into characters that seem so lifeless. I should have cried at the death of one of the characters, but by the end, I didn't care, I didn't have any emotional attachment to any of the characters like a good movie should have. By the end of the film, Harry Potter and his friends in the wizarding world are right back to where they were at the beginning of the film which is that Harry Potter has finally convinced everyone that his enemy Lord Voldemort is back.
It didn't need to take a boring, and talky two and a half hour movie to get that simple point across. This film feels simply like the Harry Potter films are seriously running out of steam before the last book hits stores. Once again, the Warner Brothers studio delivers a disappointing Harry Potter film.
Yet again, we are treated to the same wizard and their wands duel that occurred in Goblet of Fire. I was ready to yawn at the end of the film along with the rest of the audience.
In the end Harry tells his friends while boarding a train, "We have something worth fighting for" Haven't we already gone down this path, just kill off Voldemort and get on with it. As the saying goes, get on with the story already. I don't know how many people have much interest left for anymore Harry Potter movies, I know I don't.