Please bring Steve Kloves back...

Rating: 7/10 (13 July 2007)

I saw the first four movies without reading the books and I loved them all. Once I read the books, I understood the movies a whole lot better but I still felt that they did justice to the books. Maybe it was this difference in order that made me have such high expectations for Order of the Phoenix - there were so many scenes that I'd read about that I was dying to see in the movie - but I have to say that overall, I was very disappointed by this movie. I understand that a lot had to be cut, especially given that this was the longest book, but there was SO MUCH missing that I don't think it would have been difficult to include. There is no reason that this movie should be the shortest when this book was the longest. Even ten or 15 more minutes worth of scenes would have made this movie perfectly amazing. Even a lot of the things that were actually included in the movie were changed, which was just as disappointing as the things we didn't see at all.
I have to admit though that there were some things about this movie that were dead on perfect. Luna and Umbridge were perfect, and Bellatrix was AMAZING. I was actually disappointed at how short her screen time was. The scene where Harry and the Aurors flew over the Thames, the duel between Voldemort and Dumbledore (I loved the "It was a mistake for you to come here tonight, Tom"), the DA, Bellatrix's escape from Azkaban, Umbridge in general, etc. were all well done. I just feel that there were some scenes that were necessary to set up Half Blood Prince that were not included in this movie at all.
We don't see Neville's parents which means that we don't see how hard he works to do well in the DA, and his face to face with Bellatrix is hardly full of the desire for revenge that we know Neville feels in the book. We don't see Harry asking Kreacher where Sirius is, which is the whole reason why Harry was so quick to run to the Ministry - he didn't know that Sirius was upstairs, perfectly fine, because Kreacher lied to him. We hardly see any of the visions and dreams Harry is having throughout the book, which are central to whole story. We don't see much of Occlumency and there's no Quidditch, which is important to Ron's development at least. I was hoping to see McGonnagall and Umbridge go at it at least once, but there was none of that. In fact I felt like I hardly saw any of the adult characters for more than five minutes each. I've never really warmed up to Gambon after getting used to Harris as Dumbledore, but he wasn't completely horrible this time around. And overall the order of events is changed a lot (in the interest of time I suppose) but I can deal with that compared to the other gaping holes.
I think my greatest disappointment was the scene near the end of the movie when Dumbledore and Harry finally talk face to face. In the final chapters of the book, this is when Harry is enraged and devastated and Dumbledore finally explains the prophecy, but none of that is in the movie. In fact, the whole deal with the prophecy is completely changed. I thought this was one of the most important scenes in the book and it was hardly in the movie at all. Harry's relationship was Sirius was somewhat decently set up in the movie, but we never see his complete and utter devastation at Sirius' death. The end of the movie is not at all in the book, but it's not that bad compared to the rest of the movie.
Overall, the reason I give this a 7/10 is because of the charm of the Harry Potter movies. All in all it's not a completely horrible movie, but I won't say I'm not glad that the script writer of the first four is coming back for the last two. What gets me is that Order of the Phoenix did absolutely nothing to set up Half Blood Prince and left huge gaping holes in the plot that would not have been very difficult to fill in. Half Blood Prince is my favorite book so far, so I can only hope that it redeems the series and somehow gets on without Order of the Phoenix setting it up.