surprisingly disappointing

Rating: 6/10 (13 July 2007)

To begin with, Order of the Pheonix has been my favorite book so far. As i was reading it all I could do was imagine how awesome it was going to be on the screen! The whole plot is amazing, and exciting, perfect for a film version it seemed. Granted there would be much cut out, as it has been the longest book in the series so far, I was still looking forward to a crazy film. Needless to say I went into my screening of Harppy Potter at 4 o'clock the day after it came out and I was a little taken back. I thought over all it was pretty cool but so much was removed, parts that could and should have been added in if they just spent a little more time with it. The film was very rushed, the cuts between a few different scenes are so dramatic i wasn't sure if it really just happened or not. My boyfriend, who has not yet read the book, was unsure if a certain major incident near the end of the film even happened or not because of how abrupt the scene ended! And while I'm on the subject, the last scene could have been so INCREDIBLE! The last few chapters of the book are some of the most intense pages in all of the Harry Potter books combined, and it took the film about 5 minutes to show us. It would have been worth it all, had they taken like 30 extra minutes and actually elaborated the last scenes to what they needed to be. Basically, there were major plot holes- to a fan of the book anyway, pretty good acting- about as same as usual, although I felt like I didn't see Ron or Hermione much, but, that was due to how short the scenes were in order to pack the movie into just a few minutes over 2 hours. All and all, I did enjoy the film, I just think it was just too rushed and packed together to really do the book justice. They should have done a "Kill Bill" type movie, split it into two parts and released them separately. Maybe I need to go alert David Yates and let this little secret out, if the final book is going to be as big and intense as I hope. I know people are going to expect something crazy from that. Anyway, Let's just hope David Yates brings it next time, because he's in it for the long road and so am I.