Order of the Pheonix - A real let down

When I first read the book back when it was released, I can remember thinking it was decent, if a little bogged down by excess filler material. The way was paved for a potentially excellent film adaptation - skip over the filler and focus on the thrilling set pieces. With the Goblet of Fire movie proving to be a fine and faithful adaptation, I couldn't see them going far wrong with OOTP - I was much mistaken.

This is a hollow and soulless version of the fifth installment of the Potter series. The filmmakers made an such unholy mess of the books key scenes! Sirius's death and the character's reaction to it had a about as much emotion as a frozen Moscow lake. The exchanges between Harry and Dumbledore were tepid compared to those in the novel, and the significance of the prophesy was almost downplayed.

There were some positives - the quality of the kid's acting is on the up; but surely that much is expected given the amount of acting classes they are forced to attend on a daily basis. All the usual suspects do a job in their roles once again, but the likes of Alan Rickman et al have precious little screen time this time round.

All in all, i'd say this is the most disappointing installment so far. I wasn't expecting much from the first two, but three and four set high standards. This latest installment falls well short of them.

i agree one hundred percent with you...HUGE MISTAKE. i hated the movie myself. Umbridge seemed as though she was queen of hogwarts. big let down in my opinion. Also it was so rushed, i know it was a long book but no quidditch. KMON!

I thought she banned quidditch in the book or some shit like that.

no Fred george get a ban for beating on malfoy. Bu t they still win the cup and i wanted to see malfoy get beaten up.

they just didn't see quidditch as a big thing. Can't put everything in 2 hrs and had to cut alot.

still i don't like malfoy. Atleast, show the first match beacause harry didn't see the last or i think the 2nd one.

In my opinion, it was the best movie of the 5. At the same time however, it was probably the worst adaption of all of them. Sure, I missed Quidditch, St. Mungo's most of the Ministry, etc, but most of the rest of the movie kept me in awe.

I agree. The Movie wasent that good. I loved Kreacher though.

I agree with Barker - it topped PoA for me, which is an extremely hard thing to do.

OotP did what adaptations had to do - it took the IMPORTANT parts of the book, the things that were HARRY-CENTRIC, and made them into film-form. Even more importantly, OotP caught the spirit of the book, which PoA did, but in a much more artsy way that failed to appeal to the less sophisticated audience.

OotP managed to be both intelligent and entertaining - a rare feat in the world of movies today.

Acting: 6/10

The acting wasn't horendous in this one, but was not good at all. Umbridge, Luna and Bellatrix each award this movie 2 points for thier amazing acting talent. All three acted exactly as I thought they should. Luna was very dreamy, Bellatrix was psychotic and Umbridge was a complete ****. Perfect. However, it seems that some of the main characters cannot seem to grasp the concept that emotion needs to be conveyed to the audience. In scenes where they are supposed to be in a heated argument or angry about something, they speak the lines as though bored. This includes Harry and Hermione (which I'm surprised because she always delivers). Ron didn't have many lines though, which was also a surprise.

Directing: 3/10

I am clinging to the hope that the director had been drugged and the movie was sabotaged, however that is unlikely. Yates should have not dropped so many key plot details just so that he could drag on scenes that were boring as hell. He got 3 points because he could at least get the story off the ground (kinda like a train). Even though he didn't realize the tracks were broken and the train careened into a valley, he tried to save it. Grimmauld place didn't look like a mansion, looked kinda like shit. There are just so many problems with the directing. As a director, Yates's job is to oversee every aspect of the film, which he obviously can't handle.

Casting: 5/5

One thing I liked was the casting. This was brilliant. All the actors fit their role perfectally. Some of the old actors may not have improved, but they all looked the part and many acted it well. Like I said earlier, the newer charaters were expertly chosen and in my opinion, there was noone better for those roles.

Effects: 4/5

The effects were very cool. The only bummer is that I expected much more new stuff, whereas I ended up seeing the same shit. The one point loss is for this reason stated and that the veil was done wrong. This isn't stargate bitchez. The scenes in the Hall of Prophecies (however brief they were) and the Dumbledore/Voldemort fight scenes had great effects. (not to say that that made the scene itself good). I'd also like to add that scenes jumped from one to the other. It was very amateur-like. One second they would be talking about something, and inexplicably everyone involved knew about it and have some sort of plan. One second they were on thestrals, and the next they were in the ministry, just like that. No explanation for the alck of security, nothing.

Plot Conveyed: 5/10

The main plot was conveyed: Harry has weird dreams, gets the prophecy, done. The deeper plot however, was completely forgotten. Most of the action in Grimmauld place was completely left out and the interesting scenes were unbelievably brief. The fight scenes were altogether udner ten minutes, and the kids only ran away and really didn't do any fighting. Nobody but Sirius got hurt, which wasn't at all depressing. He didn't even fall backwards into the veil like he was supposed to, he was kinda sucked into it by the playdoh-jelly like substance. There were also many plot holes. For example: Why couldn't anyone but Hary touch the prophecy? Hoe exactly did Bellatrix escape?Why did Dumbledore's wand connect with Voldemorts? That only happens with Voldemaort and Harry's wand. What happened with Snape and James? Also, things that didn't need to be changed from the book were (not to mention forgotten facts). Why would they make Cho the traitor? Didn't Snape give Umbridge fake veritaserum? What about Rita Skeeter? Firenze?

Total: 57/100

Overall I didn't like this movie. I'll buy the DVD, but just for the sake of having all 5. I can't recommend you don't see it, but just don't go in with high expectations. If you haven't read the book, plan to be lost on certain things that aren't explained. If you have read the book, you will leave PISSED. Also, don't expect huge fight scenes like the said. We only see one death eater go down, and one good guy go down, in a total of about 7 minutes of fighting.

I don't know about you guys. But I liked it. Sure it had flaws and I prefer the fourth. but what the hell. I can't see it really any more different

now if you want to talk about summer let downs. Lets talk Spider-Man 3..ouch

LUNA WAS AMUSING! And Umbridge was just as creepy as I thought she'd be! I was VERY upset at how Ginny only had that one line of Reducto 🙁

i did like luna's acting and will be looking forward to seeing her in the 6 and seventh films. ginny i think will also be a good actress even though they haven't been giving her good lines or parts. i also like ron's acting because well i think hes always been the better actor.

But Dan, no he cannot act. Friggen smiling while he was crying (Talking about GOF)

so did Harry do an Anniken? figgin hell the author has taken bits out of almost every previous fantasy epic and mixed it into HP:

Am I the only one who would give this film 9/10 (it would have been 10 if more of the book was added)?
I thought the film would be quite bad as not a lot of action (compared to the other books) happens in the book, but watching that film has been the highlight of July for me. While watching the opening 20 minutets, I had the feeling I was possibily watching the best film of the year (no joking). If nothing else, it was better than the Prisoner Of Azkaban.
The casting and actors again were outstand, with Black's role being the hightlight of the film opposite Luna.
Overall, I love this film and it now becomes #2 on my top #10 list of films ever.

The film was very well done. I'm not saying it was the best, but it was put well. Though I felt things were rushing a lot in the beginning, things smoothed out towards the middle and the end. They kept what was important and threw away anything not needed really. I say a 7.

PPL , I usually don't do this, but some of this information, please try to cover them, its spoilers. There are ppl around, me for example that has not seen the movie.
Thanks

I'm going to see it tomorrow. I'm sure it will be good! All of the movies are. So I'm not worried.

While I agree with points on some of these opinions I disagree on others...The Directing wasn't the most brilliant thing I have seen to be honest. I felt many of the things were portrayed in the best way the movie could bring them out. Much of the 5th book is what harry was going through emotionally and feeling, and they couldn't exactly add a voiceover every second so you could tell what he was thinking, nobody would be in the theater by the end if they did that cause it would kinda get annoying. However there were many of things they could have done, for instance, Fred and George leave hogwarts (to start a joke shop ^^) but I dont recall them speaking about a joke shop at all (correct me if im wrong tho). Compared to the PoA movie I think what this DID include was an ok, if not good, adaptation. All book movies are going to have flaws such as this one, the bigger the book, the more flaws usually. Lets just be thankful this didn't go "Eragon" on us...omg...
P.S. Where was Lupin in Ootp?! and since when has he a mustache!?