Quite possibly the best of the series

Rating: 8/10 (11 July 2007)

It's quite amazing to see the direction the Harry Potter franchise has come since the cheery, yet unyieldingly faithful Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone. Although liberties have been taken with the text, with things shifted around or deleted altogether (with the source material over 900 pages, I hardly think anyone's complaining), the latest installment of the Harry Potter series offers some of the most entrancing moments of the year.
In Order of the Phoenix, Harry's world becomes decidedly more violent and vulnerable. Nothing seems as secure as it did before. This is a sign of two things: a changing world, and all the joys of growing up. Both are developed very well. In fact, I'd go as far as saying Harry enjoyed more character development in this movie than in at least two of the other movies combined. We also get to see brief glimpses of development in other characters including Ginny Weasley, Sirius Black, and Professor Snape.
It's hard to come by such an outstanding cast as what was mustered for this movie. Not only are all the veterans showing their mettle, but the newly christened actors of tomorrow are keeping up with them. The three child leads, though not so child anymore, are expectedly improving with age, but I think the improvement was most evident in this movie. New additions to the cast were all wisely made, especially Imelda Staunton as Professor Umbridge, who stole scenes as the school's new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.
Wise decisions were made all around, but as always there are little things missing here and there that could have made the movie even greater. One of my favorite things about the movie, however, is how it keeps referring to the previous movies. With all the movies differing from each other so much, it was nice to see the filmmakers taking some initiative and trying to wrap them together to make the story feel a little less uneven and bring some continuity to the franchise.
Hardcore fans of the book will probably be disappointed, but I think, with a few changes, this is about the best you could hope for. Any faults are no means on the actors or production crew, who all do an outstanding job, but on those whose decision it lies to make these movies continuously shorter than the previous one.