completely absurd.

Rating: 1/10 (16 November 2007)

I have tried in my mind's eye to separate the books from the movie - and I have found that it is simply impossible. Rowling did an absolutely amazing job on the books, and it is never reflected in any of the movies. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is an 870 page book, however, apparently 138 minutes should account as a sufficient amount of time to place everything in the book that had any standing or was of any importance to the plot.
Firstly, in the alleyway with Dudley, Harry stabs a dementor in the eye. What?! Where on earth did this come from? I was never aware that you could ward off a dementor with a simple stab of the eye. Thusly, would it not have made sense for Harry to have done this during the third movie as well, instead of having to spend a great deal of time trying to learn and develop his own patronus?
There only seems to be one main character in this movie, which is Harry Potter. Hermione and Ron take a backseat to the "we're supporting actors with one line each". Seriously, Yates, give the two friends of Harry a little more screen time, they are important characters in the plot line, or have you not noticed? Ginny's character is not even explored throughout the entirety of the movie, and neither is Neville's. Neville turns out to be quite an important character in the series, especially in deathly hallows.
Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes? What kind of crap was that? A couple fireworks and Fred & George shouting out their new location in Diagon Alley. What happened to the actual fireworks that caused Umbridge her much-deserved stress? What happened to the smart remarks of certain teachers, who kept Umbridge quick on her feet, claiming they hadn't any idea of the authority they had when dealing with said fireworks? WHAT HAPPENED TO THE SWAMP? That would have been the most amazing CG in any of the HP movies thus far, and hopefully in the rest of the series. I was totally amped for the swamp, and for Peeves. Speaking of, did they just simply decide to cut Peeves' from the series completely? I'm betting, since we haven't heard from the old poltergeist since Movie 2.
haha, what's with St. Mungo's anyways? No, Neville's parents being tortured to insanity by the Cruciatus Curse is not an important part of the movie. Exploring Neville would have made the movie all the more interesting, including explaining exactly what happened to Frank and Alice Longbottom so that Hermione and Ron know, and it's not just a secret with Harry. Does this not give reason for Neville's battles in Deathly Hallows? How his grandmother tells him that he is in fact his parents' son and to keep fighting? Yes, Neville is important in DH, but apparently it's not important to explore his background anymore than it was to see Arthur Weasley after he got his "stitches" and the complete isolation of Harry's personality. We skip from Harry's premonition to Arthur being wheeled in sitting in a wheelchair by Molly, who delivers the lame line of "Daddy's home!" (and I was so looking forward to seeing Mungo's and the Welcome Witch).
Then, making the plot only more awful, Harry hears the prophecy by Professor Trelawny in the Department of Mysteries, completely omitting the talk with Dumbledore at the end of the movie. In essence, this was quite an important talk, because it leads into the conversation of exactly WHY Harry is "destined" to kill Voldemort, or vice versa, because "None can live while the other survives", though Harry knows that because Voldemort simply listened to a
prophecy, he killed Harry's parents and tried to murder Harry as well, but he couldn't. Only by listening to a simple prophecy, Big V made himself his own enemy. By listening to a prophecy, he made his own destiny, when if he'd just left it alone, he wouldn't have failed.
There are a couple more plot sequences left out (or totally made up), such as: - the exploration of Luna Lovegood and Xenophilius Lovegood, as well as the interview by Rita Skeeter for the Quibbler, which was supposed to cause quite a riot under Umbridge's watch. - the random "thestral feeding" scene, which is nice, because Luna finally gets more than a couple of lines in. - where did the ten thousand "educational decrees" come from? including those like "No PDA". - nice try, Dumbledore's Army. The spell Levicorpus is not introduced until Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, where Harry reads the HBP's potions book and notices "Levicorpus", "Liberacorpus", "Sectumsempra", and the spell to cause a buzzing sensation in the ears when you need a muffled conversation. So nice try OotP, these spells are important to the plot of HBP more than OotP, especially in the chapter with Malfoy, Harry, Snape, and Moaning Myrtles Bathroom.
i'm sure there are more than a thousand scenes either cut or unnecessarily put into this catastrophe you could call a movie, but i figure it would be wasting time when real HP lovers know all of them. I do not plan on seeing the HBP or DH movies at all.