Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Aka, Harry Potter 5.

This time i'm reviewing Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the movie. Now, it's not actually a movie i'd recently seen, but instead a movie i'd recently REseen. As a fan of the books, i've so far made it a point to see each film as they came out in theatres. Recently, however, my parents had rented Harry Potter 5 for my nephew to watch while he was over for the holidays and so i decided to sit in and see it again for myself. But i digress. Let's get on with the review, shall we?

As it is an adaptation from a book, it's impossible to discuss it without comparing it to the book. I'll try to be as fair as possible, though, as any movie adaptation, no matter how well done, is typically worse than the book it was based off. That being said, this movie is no different.

Since the movie is adapted from a 600 plus page book, the plot barrels forward like a freight train on steroids; subtlety and nuance be damned. The result of this is many characters who had failed to appear in the film they were supposed to are dumped in now without any introduction and for no other purpose than contrived plot devices:

"It's a good thing that witch who lives across the street from the Dursley's shows up when she does, otherwise Harry and Dudley would've been in real trouble. Of course, it would've been even MORE convenient if she had appeared 3 films earlier when she was actually supposed to."

Now, something directors often do when they have to emphasize a subtle point is have characters outwardly vocalize their thoughts because they can't internally soliloquize. To a degree this is necessary. However, sometimes a director has to trust that his or her audience isn't composed entirely of morons and that they WILL pick up on the strongly hinted at occurances without the need of an on screen character pointing it out for them. Apparently, the director/writers of Harry Potter don't know when this is appropriate and when it's not. As a result, throughout the movie, Hermoine serves the role of outward soliloquizer, pointing out all the giant pink elephants in the room as we go because apparently you have to be a genius to get this stuff.

"What's going on?" Ron mutters upon hearing the ministry-appointed, Professor Umbridge cut off the Hogwarts' headmaster and insert her own ministry-approved spiel.
"The ministry's interfering at Hogwarts!" Hermoine declares.
Ron and Harry look dumbfound.

Phew, it's a good thing she straightened that out for me. I NEVER would've figured it out. Or maybe it was for the onscreen characters only. Harry and Ron can be quite thick sometimes.

Another thing people do in book adaptations is change some elements of the story. Again, sometimes this is necessary. Unless the movie were 8 hours long, it'd be incredibly hard to be truly faithful to the book. So, to a degree, story changes are a necessary evil. Yet, for some reason, directors take this liberty to an insane level and often end up changing story elements into completely different story elements for no obvious reason. I remember Fred and George Weasley rebelling and using some kind of magical garden spell on the school. Why was this changed to fireworks in the movie? Did it add anything? Did it save time? As far as i can tell, the only reason it was done is because fireworks "go boom" and plants do not. At any rate, story-wise it felt like something was taken away from me.

Another thing they did was have Percy Weasley make a non-speaking appearance near the middle of the film. I guess this was to remind the audience he's not dead (despite having an important role in the first movie and none since). But it still makes me wonder. After all, if you're not going to introduce the growing rift in the Weasley family or have them even mention his name, why have Percy show up at all? This, ironically, would be the perfect point to have characters outwardly soliloquize their feelings on the topic. But we, as the audience, are left with it as an "easter egg" and nothing more. I suspect we'll see more of Percy in the coming movies, but if we do, it'll be awkwardly explained how he and his father had had a falling out.

All in all, the movie wasn't too bad. I think upon my second time through i found it more entertaining than before. Of course, my blood alcohol level was also significantly higher (it WAS the holidays). Either way, if you're a fan of the books, you'll probably want to see it, regardless; if you're not, you won't. So i guess this review was a total waste of time (like my others aren't?). Ah well, we all make mistakes. Let's just hope our mistakes don't all get turned into movies.