I watched the movie last night. It seemed to me to be a disappointing entry into the series. Unlike the first two movies, it didn’t attempt to revel in the “wonder” of the magic (except in throw-away scenes). Unlike the third movie, it didn’t manage to create any sense of true suspense. It’s like the director tried for both, and got neither.
Harry is obviously going through teen-age angst. He’s filled with unhappiness, he mis-interprets the emotions of those around him, and he has mood swings that aren’t under control. He isn’t willing to submit to authority easily. Yet much of this aspect was so totally lost in the movie. Except for a new, harder edged haircut, you almost couldn’t tell that his behaviour was in any way “teen.”
And the climax of the movie was devoid of any true suspense. You don’t get any feeling of sadness or upset at the one loss involved and you don’t ever wonder quite what is going to happen next.
I just saw it on Thursday with my 10 year old nephew.
I liked it quite a bit and, contrary to my usual “Only a few movies in the theater every year” philosophy, am actually thinking about going back to see it again next Thursday!
I thought they did a great job of cutting a ponderously long book into a usable movie, while covering all the necessary basics of the plot.
My thoughts exactly. I will go a little further and say that it was flawlessly cast, and the director made some great visual choices. I don’t expect the movies to be anything more than “The Books - Lite”, and OoP fit the bill perfectly.
I say its a great film, which means something considering that I think the book is the weakest of the entire series. The visuals were fantastic, the acting was perfect, and the story was told concisely with great pacing. I do think that anyone who hadn’t read the book might miss out on the significance of some small scenes, but I can’t imagine anyone who is interested in Harry Potter who hasn’t read the books.
I can agree somewhat with your statement that the whimsy of magic is somewhat lost but I think that is part of the progression of the series from child to adult and not necessarily the fault of the film.
Now that I’ve finished the series I rate the books as so from best to worst:
The Goblet of Fire
The Philosopher’s Stone
The Prisoner of Azkaban
The Deathly Hallows
The Chamber of Secrets
The Half-blood Prince
The Order of the Phoenix
and the films from best to worst:
The Sorcerer’s Stone
The Order of the Phoenix
The Goblet of Fire
The Prisoner of Azkaban
The Chamber of Secrets
Goes to show how film can improve upon a poor story or ruin a good story according to how its made. Part of the problem with some of the later books is that I think Rowling began to suffer from successful writer syndrome, where she became immune to calls from editors to cut her books down for the sake of the story. OOTP was far too long for the story it was trying to tell.
I might have to see the movie again to appreciate it. I didn’t read the book, and parts of the movie were perplexing.
I didn’t understand the importance of the prophecy – was it important? It seemed fairly innocuous and I didn’t get why Voldemort needed it so badly. If he’s all that strong and powerful, why would he care about a prophecy?
The stuff with the Weasley twins leaving Hogwarts was jarring. I didn’t get their motivation, and it felt like they just wanted an excuse to put on a fireworks display.
The casting, as always was superb, and I thought the occlumency lesson part was well done.
The only thing I didn’t like was the kiss between Harry and Cho Chang. I know it was supposed to be an awkward moment, especially for Harry, but they were stiff-bodied, with their arms at their sides, and standing two feet apart. I didn’t want them tonguing and groping each other, but I expected better.
I think they portrayed teenager Harry well, we could see he was pissed when he arrived at Headquarters, and later I thought the loss he felt was obvious from his reaction where Lupin was holding him back.
I agree that theres things that could have been done differently, as already mentioned, the ending should have been better (where was the talk with Dumbledore?) and the kiss a little awkward, and also the twins leaving the school wa smuch better in the books and should have been easy to put on screen but for some reason it didnt work.
Overall I think the the film worked well. The cast was great and the acting was better then it had been in the last movies so that wa a plus.
The person who passed the prophecy onto Voldemort only ever heard half the prophecy, he told Voldie what he heard and Voldie acted on the information (set out to kill James lilly and Harry) when he met his downfall in Harry he became obsessed with hearing the remainder of the prohecy.
I thought it was the weakes Potter film so far, but I expected it since it was the weakest book.
I’m concerned that David Yates wants to make the movies shorter instead of a bit longer. I’m concerned he’ll ruin Half-Blood Prince, which is my favorite book in the series.
I think Half-Blood Prince and Deathly Hallows need to be around 2 hrs. 45 to capture the entire books. I think his plan(for Half-Blood Prince anyway) is to continue along the 2 hrs. 15 minute mark.
There lives and breathes someone who thinks Goblet was the best book in the series?? The mind boggles. I rank it dead last. The movie kind of sucked ass too, but given what they had to work with, I had pretty low expectations going in.
Like the OP I was disappointed with Order of the Phoenix. It skipped around too much, not properly finishing the subplots it started to develop. It was kind of like watching a badly edited overlong trailer instead of a movie.
You’ve inspired me to put up my own ordinal rankings though…
The books as so from best to worst:
The Half-Blood Prince
The Deathly Hallows
The Prisoner of Azkaban
The Order of the Phoenix
The Chamber of Secrets
The Philosopher’s Stone
The Goblet of Fire
and the films from best to worst:
The Prisoner of Azkaban
The Chamber of Secrets
The Sorcerer’s Stone
The Order of the Phoenix
The Goblet of Fire
I agree with the OP. Parts of it were pretty good, but it didn’t finish anything it started in any satisfactory way. This was the worst for assuming we’d read the book already to fill in the blanks.
Unfortunately, this same director is going to make the next film, which has less plot than any of them.
They’d better get a kick-arse action/suspense director for Deathly Hallows.
I thought it was pretty decent, but there were two main omissions that I thought were going to hurt the future movies, especially with adults, in the light of the last book <spoilers>:
Nearly Headless Nick’s speech about ghosts being spirits that were afraid to “move on” into death. This ties in to Voldemort’s fear of death and Dumbledore’s remark that there are things worse than it, and will detract from the ‘King’s Cross’ chapter depiction.
Not enough of Young Snape and the Young Marauders; and it turns out the key to that scene was not that Snape was bugged by James and his friends, but his spitting out the ‘Mudblood!’ name at longtime best friend Lily, breaking a tie that proved vital to his triple-agenting and all. Also, the vital question of boxers or briefs wasn’t answered.
In fact, I found the whole ending with Dumbledore and Harry too rushed, which will make Movie Six less nuanced. Oh well. The prophecies all falling down was cool.
I liked the film, better than any of the rest. Wait, Wait. I can explain…
I’ve just started reading the Harry Potter books, I’m up to Goblet of Fire, Which was my least favorite of the movies, really. So, While I hadn’t read Order of the Phoenix, I have gotten into the series. So I’ve yet to see a Harry Potter Movie where I have read the book first, yet. That probably won’t be true by the time we get to Half Blood Prince.
I can see where this Movie wouldn’t stand alone well, I think it’s assumed anyone watching has seen at least one of the other movies. We don’t need to wonder at magic, anymore, we’re at war, from without and within, and the tone grows darker.
The CG dragon was good, but the scenes involving the CG dragon were one of the weaker points of the movie. They got so involved in their fantastic believable scary dragon they forgot that they were supposed to be telling a story, and they kind of messed up that part of the story. Harry isn’t particularly skilled in other ways that would make him suitable for this TriWizard thingamabobbie, but he’s damned good on a broomstick. Good enough that he gets to outfly the dragon. Not just kind of by-the-skin-of-his-teeth and via sheer dumb luck accidentally manage to not get turned into roast dragonfood.
Full agreement. The Goblet movie was ruined by the overuse of CGI and artificial melodrama in the first and third tasks (the second was pretty well done, though).
The Order movie did a good job of the abridgement it needed to be in order to bring the book to film, but there was so much missing, I can’t bring myself to like it too much. Still, it did cover the important points, unlike the Prisoner movie, which completely removed the emotional core of the book (yet some people consider it to be the best of the films…that boggles me).
If you’re uninitiated, you wouldn’t really know why the film is called Order of the Phoenix. The longest film in the series somehow ends up being the shortest film, with everything rushed, much omitted, and very little of it memorable.
I I were director, I’d have taken some license with the source material, too. But I’d have at least shown the source material some respect.
Which I don’t think Yates is capable of doing. Maybe he doesn’t have that much interest in the book. Maybe there’s a bigger difference between film and tv than adjusting the aspect ratio, and he just doesn’t get it. Or maybe (and this, I’m sorry to say, seems to me most likeyly) somebody in Los Angeles was putting Yates under pressure to keep the film length to less than two and a half hours, and Yates turned out to be too squirelly to insist that the film actually had to be good.
Long as I’m here…
Films:
Prisoner of Azkaban
Goblet of Fire (yes, the CGI was overdone, but very enjoyable nonetheless)
Sorceror’s Stone
Chamber of Secrets (largely unnecessary rehash of Sorceror’s Stone)
Order of the Phoenix (made me almost angry enough to go to the barbecue pit)
Books:
Order of the Phoenix
Deathly Hallows
Azkaban
Goblet
Prince
Stone
Chamber (same reasons as above)
I felt the same way. And, never having read any of the books, I came away muttering, “Huh?!?”
We went with the Harry-Potter obsessed son of a friend. As soon as we left the theatre he ticked on his fingers every single thing he found wrong with the film, ranging from leaving too much stuff out to condensing the first few chapters in the first half hour and no no NO! Don’t gloss over what the “Order of the Phoenix” means!
Out of all the Harry Potter films thus far, this one had me completely lost. Maybe it’s the darkness/angsty/I’m-growing-up undercurrent. Characters whom I think I should know float in and out (who the heck was the blonde guy wanting the prophecy?) randomly. Then you get inexplicable characters like Hagrid’s giant half-brother or the centaurs, neither of whom I ever recall seeing or knowing about before…???