Not fantastic enough to see a second time

Rating: 6/10 (12 July 2007)

Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix is my second favorite book after the third book (Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban). I don't know; it could be that the movie experience was horrible in the theater. The film had problems starting. We got through the previews, and then there was a 15 minute lag. The last hour of the movie was interrupted with the screen being in half and the roll just dying out. Theater personnel had to fix the film twice. The whole experience left me sour. That being said, the story itself felt very rushed.
The creators had so much material to work with to deliver a great film but they fell short. Like Goblet of Fire, events and exposition of said events were truncated to advance the plot. The transitions to get through the plot were not chosen well. You knew when every scene was done and we were on to the next one. I hate this. There was nothing smooth about this, I was waiting to get in the groove of the story but every scene was too jarring. If I didn't read the book, I would have been very confused and bored. Although I did enjoy certain aspects of the movie, like the portrayals of Umbridge, Luna, Luscious Malfoy, the House of Black, Bellatrix, the Weasley twins and key moments like the D.A. lessons the elements were not satisfying enough to make up for the horrible editing.
The movie moved too fast to showcase action scenes. More thought should have been given to the script writing especially for the beginning and ending of the book. In the book, Harry is so angry in the beginning of the story and at the end he is a mess of fury and grief and there is a clear feeling of dread for our hero, which is what makes the story so compelling. I'm disappointed this does not play that way in the movie.
I wanted to watch this more than once in the theater but its not great enough to see again.