Highly Entertaining - After All, Isn't That The Point? :-P

Rating: Null/10 (12 July 2007)

Well, I saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix last night. There were things I liked and things I didn't, just as with all the other movies. I felt the beginning was a bit rushed, more so than the rest of the film, but that's understandable since the book is so massive. It can't have been easy to convert from book to script.They did get in most of what was necessary and throughout the film managed to get across Harry's frustration at Dumbledore's ignoring him without really resorting to verbal explanation (if that makes sense...).
As the movie progressed this got better, but one thing that initially bothered me was that the performances, particularly those of the three 'heroes' were ever-so-slightly wooden. This is most obvious when Harry is upset with Ron and Hermione at Grimmauld Place because they haven't told him anything about what they were doing; when Fred and George Apparate in the room, they imply that Harry had been yelling, but he clearly wasn't. It's disappointing to think Daniel Radcliffe wouldn't have thought of this himself and just chose to speak in a more tense, subdued way than is implied in the script. But maybe I'm nit-picking.
Of the three really new characters - Dolores Umbridge, Luna Lovegood, and Bellatrix Lestrange - I think the most successful was Luna. Umbridge was fantastic, perfectly twisted beneath a facade of sweetness. Bellatrix too was great, vicious and clearly a raving lunatic. Luna, however, was a character that could so easily have been disastrous. The actress in the role was perfect, just perfect; I don't think they could have found anyone better. The character was clearly very out-there, but in a solid, matter-of-fact way; the fact that the character accepts the unusual without making it a big deal comes across beautifully. She was adorable, very likable, and the best Luna I could have hoped for.
While not all of the story's elements made it into the movie, the most important bits did. I also liked how the influence of the press on Harry's life at this time is not made a big deal of nor mentioned too often, but the press clippings and headlines serve to update or clarify the story in some parts and also make the press a bigger part of the story. It was an elegant way of going about it, especially when there are time constraints to worry about.
There were some plot bits that were acknowledged, but the development was woefully thin, including Fred and George's ambitions outside of school (the Skiving Snackboxes are featured, but no one explains what they are or what Fred and George aim to do with them) and the relationship between Harry and Cho (it got off to a good start and just...disappeared, with little explanation). Although it's not totally necessary to the plot, I was a little upset that the bit about Ron and Hermione becoming school prefects was totally non-existent. Of course, this is a huge fan of the books speaking; I understand completely that not everything was going to end up on screen.
As a side note, and I didn't think about it before or while watching the movie, but if I recall, there was a complete lack of Quidditch in this movie, which means there was a complete lack of Ron Keeping for Gryffindor, which I was looking forward to. Personally, I don't really care though; there's only so much you can do with it on film. Chances are it would have disrupted the story considerably and gotten a little boring after 5 seconds. We've had enough Quidditch with the first three movies, and we'll see what they do with the sixth. (I'll say no more here in case someone's not read it.) One of the bits that I liked most was at the end when Voldemort sort of pseudo-possesses Harry in the Department of Mysteries. Since the plot-point of Harry being at risk of Voldemort wasn't as important as in the book, that really brought it together, along with Harry lines concerning Voldemort's inability to love or care about anyone. It really brought forward a very important point well but without using up too much film time. It was also simply a seriously cool bit of movie sceneage. It was neat; what more could you want in a piece of entertainment? Also, as far as script-writing goes, I had been worried about Dumbledore's explanation at the end of why he didn't talk to Harry all year. In the book it took a long time for him to tell him, several pages spent on one subject. That's perfectly fine in writing, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't work as well on film. A couple of sentences though, and BOOM. Basically the whole thing was summarized quite nicely and very quickly. Again, as with the Daily Prophet headlines, it further the plot's ideas without having to overly rush it to fit the time constraints or spending more time than is necessary.
Overall, I was very impressed and quite pleased. The movie was faithful to the book while still both remaining its own art and deviating carefully where it was needed. Film is a very different medium from a book, and is dealt with differently. When translating from one to the other, things can happens, messes ensue, and afterward complaints. I don't have many, and the ones I do are small, personal, nit-picky things. I enjoyed the movie, I really did. Quite frankly, that's what I look for in a movie, and that's what I got.