Fantastic film!

Rating: 10/10 (11 July 2007)

Just saw Order of the Phoenix, and I thought David Yates did a brilliant job of translating Jo Rowling's book to the screen. Love the set design, and the acting was excellent. Imelda Staunton was perfect at the despicable Umbridge, as was Helena Bonham Carter in a tiny role as Bellatrix. Harry has become a bit of a lost soul in this movie, and Dan Radcliffe does an outstanding job of portraying him--he's really coming along as an actor. This is definitely the best movie of the series. I particularly liked that David Yates wasn't afraid cast off the tendency some of the earlier films had (Prisoner of Azkaban excepted) to portray the magical world in a very twee sort of way, and instead created a grown-up vision of magic--something that can be exciting but also hugely powerful and frightening. Can't wait to see what he does with Half Blood Prince.