read the book instead

Rating: 3/10 (30 September 2007)

Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix, Harry is back as a moody and grumpy teenage who is having a crush on his school senior. We all remember Harry as the cute and adorable child whose life changed overnight when he was brought to the Hogwarts, school of wizardy and witchcraft, but in this 5th installation, Harry is not just going through adolescence but is also disturbed by the rise of he-who-must-not-be-named, what the heck, Voldemort.
Before I saw the movie myself, I heard a lot of bad reviews from fellow friends who watched it. Being more dark, and scary, the book version of this movie in fact that concerns from the Malaysian Censorship boards, accusing the books for being too scary for the kids (i think the censorship board itself got spooked out). Gone are the scenes of introduction to the wizarding world and enchanting creatures.. the only creatures you see in this episode are the ones that are trying to kill Harry, but why you may ask, thanks to Tom Riddle (many don't know this is Voldemort's real name) he has managed to collect support from many creatures to be a part of his Death Eaters.
What disappointed me in the movie is that the lack of certain plots that were not portrayed as well as the book. And the character development (except Harry) is horrible, his friends have been turned into cheap side-kicks that we see in cheap action flicks. Dumbledore himself has been cut into very small part, but yet an important one, and Professor Gonagall, is almost non-existent. Nevertheless,even with the minimal footage on Voldemort, he has made a huge impact, played by the good-looking Ralph Fiennes, in fact a lot of work must have gone into giving him the skinny, pale, nose-less face look, which reminds me of another person who could have played the role to the tee, Michael Jackson perhaps? I hope the spoof makers of Epic are listening.. LOL... lastly cho chang doesn't look as good as the Goblet of Fire movie, or maybe my DVD was just a bad copy...
The impressive parts of the movie, no it was not the 'wet' kiss between Harry and Cho Chang, but the graphics and cinematography.. it is amazing how they visualised the story conceived by JK Rowling, and most amazingly, I still do not stop wondering, how did JK actually came up with this huge amount of imagination.. it is just Amazing with a capital A. Dementors are getting more terrifying, in fact they get more footage compared to Harry's friends.
Final verdict, don't watch the movie, grab the book, start all the way up from book#1.