Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
Having just returned from watching the latest Harry Potter movie, “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” I can’t help being a little disappointed. Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t as if it is a bad movie, it’s just that the book was better, Allot better. The CGI magic effects were impressive for color and noise value, but apart from the aparating as light and dark swirls of mist (which was pretty cool) I felt much of the magic effects looked more like something from one of the Star Wars movies, (Emperors lightning.)
Also, I know it’s the job of the screen writers to decide what to keep and what’s to go, but for some of this movie I was shaking my head thinking “what were they thinking”. The whole relationship with Cho became 2 looks and a quick snog, the whole Snape Occlumency lessons were out of wack, I mean they showed some of the fighting between young Snape and James, but no context. They skipped the Pensieve altogether, both with Snape and later with Dumbledore.
I mean the movie was good, but it’s almost like they are not viewing it as part of the series. They skipped so many clues and fore facts that they are now going to have to change the next movies also to make up for the fact that unless you’ve read the books you really don’t have a clue what’s going on in the whole story. It isn’t all bad though, I did like they way they’ve hinted that Ginny is going to be one powerful witch. My only problem really is that the story is slowly being overtaken by the CGI. In some movies that is a good thing. But Harry Potter is a great story and it doesn’t deserve getting lost in the CGI.
I originally got into the Harry Potter books because I’ve always wanted to write that sort of novel, but like so many other adults, I got caught up and swept away. Which is the point I’m trying to make here. No adult I saw in the cinema looked at all swept away by the end, though there was a round of applause when Harry snogged Cho. There were actually allot more adults in the cinema than children which made me feel a little less weird. :-) The movies have better effects each time, but each time they seem less satisfying. It seems that the better the effects are, the harder you have to fight to have them not take over the movie.
My wife gave the movie a 6 out of 10, (she gave most of the others an 8) I was a little more generous and gave it a 7, but having seen it now I worry about how badly they will have to chop up the last two to still have them make sense after removing so much of the overall plot from this one. If they skip Horcrux’s in the next one, they might as well give up.