I saw the movie last night, and I really liked it as a movie for entertainment, but the entire time I was mentally saying, 'they cut a TON out.'

A lot of people are saying that you did not see his patronus form very well, but he was casting it with a dementor all over him not in a classroom, and you COULD see some antlers.

LOVED Luna, H/L in the 7th book would make me so much happier.

Not gonna lie, the first time the twins apparated in I jumped and spilled soda on myself.

Did anyone else notice the Harley Broom that Moody had? Screw normal brooms!

The missing Fidelius Charm was odd. Also, Moody uses a staff?

Kreacher doesn't get his whole rant thing, nor do you even see Sirius' mom's portrait flip out once.

No Firenze? Sadness.

We never got to hear Umbridge ordered the Dementors after Harry.

I don't know if anyones said it, but I love Mr. Filch!

No Portable Swamp

The fight at the ministry annoyed me that it seemed to be just two rooms, and that you can easily run from the big freaking doorway of death to the main atrium really easily. The wraith thing was awesome at first, I thought that made sense, why should a wizard walk when he can ZOOM somewhere? But then out came the White glowing Order members, and I cringed.

The singular MOST disappointing thing in the movie has got to be the statues, when Harry came in and saw them for the first time and they were like 40 feet tall, me and my buddy both turned to each other and were like "Awesome" BUT THERE WAS NO AWESOME!

+++ to Luna and Filch

--- for having to leave out a lot of plot and cool back story

 

My review:

Plot: I've always felt that OotP was the poorest and weakest of the books. It's all filler, and there's very little plot to tie it all in together. It's a gigantic problem, especially when you want to put all that filler onto the big screen. The movie reflects this failing of the novel. Even though I knew exactly what was going on, I never felt any sense of plot or direction while watching. The movie just seems like a group of scenes tied together haphazardly. It's not half bad near the beginning, when Umbridge is enforcing her rule and Harry fights back with the DA. In that moment of time, you feel that there's at least a bit of sense of story that's going on. Unfortunately, when the DA dies, everything goes to pieces. The plot implodes. I'm looking at my book when I'm writing this, and even now I can't remember exactly what was going on. There's a scene with Snape, another with a break-out from Azkaban, and then another one with Grawp. It's completely random, and I was very relieved when the plot finally moved forward after Harry received his vision from Voldemort.

Even though this movie is the shortest of all the Harry Potter movies, and even though I know that everything that possibly could be cut was cut, I still feel that the movie's awkward and doesn't flow. But then again, that's not really the studio's fault. It's Rowling's fault. Quite frankly, I don't think anything more could have been cut. One example is with Snape's Worst Memory. They were able to cut it to only 10 seconds; it was a job done very well, and all the complaints and moaning we had over how the Marauders looked like losers proved to be over nothing since we didn't even see them clearly. Yet the whole entire scene still felt out-of-place. A pity.

But when Harry gets to the Department of Mysteries, the movie picks up. Some of the best scenes in the film, which I will go over later, happen in this climactic part. The battle where the Order fought the Death Eaters is brilliantly done; I feel that it was the pinnacle of the film. Dumbledore's battle with Voldemort is also very neat, with nice special effects. However, I did feel somewhat disappointed. Everybody else had stated that it's awesome - that the duel is so cool. My opinion is that while it is good, it is definitely not great. A mistake that the director made was when he decided not to use the statues. It would've given Dumbledore his own style as a dueler.

The only other complaint I have over the ending parts previously described is that they were too short. The duel with the two masters of Britain is less than a minute, while the possession of Harry lasts for around 5 minutes. The same thing occurs with the battle in the veiled room: it takes approximately the same amount of time Albus Dumbledore's duel took. A shame that the best parts of the movie are over so quickly. I would vastly have preferred Harry's possession be cut to only a minute, with the climactic duel taking up all of the lost time. The possession, which quite frankly got boring after a while, could have the same emotional impact in half of the time it's given.

By now, having gone through four years canon-rape by different movie directors, we're all used to and numb to any more changes. I usually don't care a single bit about any canon changes as long as they serve the well-being of the movie (and there are many canon changes in the movie that I will compliment later on in my review), but there were two that I couldn't stomach. Both were enforced gigantically with fanfic; without it, I probably wouldn't give a shit.

The first is the part in which the Dementor fights with Harry. It completely and utterly ravages the ideal Rowling created of what Dementors are like until there it is absolutely twisted. Dementors grabbing?Argh!

The second is with Dumbledore. Strangely enough, I hadn't minded his utter OOCness previously, but now, under the deadening influence of the fandom, I finally recognized how screwed up his character has been. JKR's Dumbledore is one of the best characters that she's created. Changing his character to a more Gandalf-esque type is deleting the best part of her story. I can actually imagine this Dumbledore yelling at a Dark!Harry in a Manipulative!Dumbledore story. That's freaking scary.

Setting: The setting - that is, the background and buildings - is generally far better than the plot. There are some mistakes, but on average it deserves commendation. The one most pointed out was how Privet Drive became farmland, or something like that. Personally, I didn't really care about that part. I'd completely forgotten what the previous movies showed Privet Drive like anyways, so there were no problems.

Having said that, I felt that the director took as much advantage of the ability to create a feeling of awe on the big screen as he could. The Ministry of Magic is better in the movie than in the book as I had imagined it. I'd always viewed it as a somewhat small and quaint place, most likely because of the amount of times I'd seen it invaded and destroyed in fanfiction. I never gave a moment's thought to having it be mugglelike; having it be like the inside of a business building.

Another example of this is with the simply magnificent film of London at night. I've never seen the capital of England at night, and by God it is beautiful. It is well worth it to see Harry and the crew fly past the Parliament building, and it's easy to retcon any Statute of Secrecy violations. Just make them have an enchantment preventing muggles from seeing them. But that scene got far too little screen time. They should have spent at least a good minute on the flight from the Dursleys into London into Sirius's home.

Lastly, there is one good Hogwarts scene where I got to see how epic it generally was. It's later on in the story, in which the camera zoomed in from the air. It isn't as much eye-candy as previous directors have shown, but seeing Hogwarts too many times does get sickening.

I slightly dislike The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. It differs too much from what I thought it would be like. I'd imagined it as more of a mansion than an apartment building. Still, that's more of a stylistic, subjective attack.

Acting: There is one thing that I must mention pertaining to the actor for Harry Potter. His acting, as usual, is horrible. But the worst part is his angst. It sucked. Although the director cuts out nearly all the angsty!angry!teenager shit Rowling put in, the remaining parts make Harry look like a loser. The beginning scene is the worst. This pale and skinny kid is sitting there all alone in a swing, just staring down. He sees a gang come out to bully him. The chief taunts him, everybody laughs, and he just goes and yells, "Shut up!" The gang continues to laugh. That part is so pathetic, and Harry is such a fucking loser in it. It is the worst part of the movie. I was thinking, "Why the fuck am I watching a movie about retard like that?" It gets worse. The wimp is tormented while all alone by his enemy Malfoy. He tries to get physical, which just proves he's pathetic. In the common room, he walks all alone without anybody talking to him while everybody else is having a grand reunion. Then his friend has to stand up for him when Seamus attacks his credibility. How fucking pitiful. It only gets better once Harry starts up the DA.

I felt that the new characters introduced here perform the best compared to the new characters introduced in all the previous movies. An interesting fact is that some don't use the unique actions Rowling wrote them with (such as Umbridge hemming), yet they still act superbly. Examples include Luna and Umbridge.

Umbridge is fairly decent, and she fits the canon very well. I don't think that she's as good as some people rave, but she walks the walk and talks the talk, which is more than you can say about a lot of actors these days.

Luna is easily the best person in the set. It was a very wise decision of the staff to give her as much time as she possibly could get. The introduction to her was awesome, and her voice, while not exactly what I imagined in the book, fits the character to the mat. After her brilliant performance here, I can easily see a reasonable HP/LL ship.

On the other hand, this movie portrays a HP/GW ship as even more unlikely than Rowling did in the book. It's good for DLP but bad for the movie's continuation for HBP. Ginny does not speak once. She's ugly. In the movie, she's still shy. And by the lack of time that she's given, I would imagine that she's a horrible actress. How ironic: to have the two of the worst actors in the series take center stage as a romantic couple next movie. The only thing the movie does do is make Ginny powerful. Some people have stated that she only knocks over a shelf, which is true, but that shelf is hundreds of feet high. Nobody else in the movie except for Dumbledore and Voldemort can do a feat of magic like that. Sadly enough, I can see Ginny as the next Albus Dumbledore. She's portrayed as the most powerful person in Hogwarts right now.

The most powerful person in the world - Voldemort - is far improved over the pathetic performance he gave in GoF. There he truly was a ballerina prancing around with Harry. Now, finally, he's somebody who can be feared, after seeing his duel with Dumbledore and how easily he disarms Harry - just a wave of his hand. A nice change from canon is when he, not Bellatrix, is the one who states that Harry needs hate to power the Cruciatus. It gives him street cred. I still don't get the "Dark Lord" vibe from him, however, merely that of "Powerful Dark Wizard." Still, it's a vast advancement from before.

Voldemort's chief follower, Bellatrix Lestrange, is the second best actress in the movie. She acts insane, alternating between laughing like a child and being serious. I highly support the change when she shouts the killing curse at Sirius instead of a red one; it'll crush the fangirls who are all sure that she's only a pretty, sweet girl under the Imperius and make them see reality.

The acting of Sirius is like that of Umbridge: fairly decent. Umbridge is slightly better overall, but Sirius has the most emotionally complex moment of the film when he calls Harry James. That is revealing, and it shows that Sirius views Harry as far more than just a son. It's too bad that nothing more can come out of it since Sirius is dead, but that moment in time shows complete genius in scripting. In addition, the movie-makers made a very good decision when they decided to give him far more film time, proportionally in the movie, than Rowling gave him book time, proportionally. When Sirius died in the book, I was somewhat confused as to why Harry cared at all when he'd barely seen the man. When he dies in the movie, it's much more understandable.

Tonks is pretty good, and I felt that her role could have been greatly expanded. Her first words in the movie - when she yells at Moody not to call her by her first name - are pretty humorous and in-character.

On the other hand, the amount of time Molly is given is perfect. I got to see that she was the quintessential mother-hen in the background without getting too annoyed at her taking over the story. Of course, this indicates that her acting is adequate.

Kingsley is well-dressed as an Auror. Also his line - "He's got style" - referring to when Dumbledore leaves Hogwarts is far better on film than in type. The whole audience laughed when he said it.

The same happened when Fred and George decide to leave Hogwarts after playing their prank on Umbridge. Their lines ring completely true, and those two actors have always put up funny, decent acting. Their introduction, in which they apparate next to Harry, is nearly as good as Luna's.

Miscellaneous: There was a very strange moment in the film: I knew exactly what Hermione was going to say before she said it when she first appeared on the big screen. It was as if her words were recalling a memory to me. Major déjà vu. Or maybe her characterization is so stable that people can predict her words.

When I saw Vernon in the film, all beliefs on whether he could ever abuse Harry in his life went out the window. There is absolutely no way for a person that fat to beat up Harry Potter. Hell, he'd probably be unable to even reach the child to punch him due to his obesity.

 

Belerdorhan covered almost all that I have to say, but I have a few things to add. The beginning was horrible- what the fuck happened to expositions, for gods sake? The movie starts when Harry is on the swings- it just jumps into things, and is slightly disorienting. It also gave me flashbacks to emo!spiderman.

The transitions were also bad- they just jump from one scene to another without any necessary common denominator. Something that stands out in my mind is the scene with Grawp- Hermione did the annoying finger wag thing, Hagrid talks about family, and Snape teaches Harry Occlumency. Want to guess which doesn't fit? Pretty much everyone around me went WTF.

They also changed so much stupid things. Why the hell was Neville the one to find the RoR? And who the fuck is Nigel?

The acting was awful. The only ones that were amazing were Luna and Bellatrix (who should get more screen-time, both in the movies and the books). Gary Oldman was also good, but everyone else were just annoyingly inept. Even Rickman was bad.

This was the worst movie yet, imo, which says a lot considering the other movies.

Edit Something I just remembered- they left out the whole Quibbler plot. No Skeeter, no interview, no Harry trying to make the truth known. They did, however, leave in all the slander.

 

Answering Belerdorhan's comment here:

This is deliberate on the director's and Ralph Finnes part. It was their belief, and I agree with them, that Voldemort is far more scary if you humanise him slightly: an evil person is far scarier than a caricature of evil.

On the topic of the film: overall, I felt it was a good film. However, concerning Harry Potter, "good" should not be good enough. As Harry Potter books are to books, Harry Potter films are not to films. Oh well, it was still enjoyable.

Specifics:

- The Harry/Cho stuff was pointless. They minimalised it so much that they may as well have cut it completely and given the screen time to something more worthy.

- The Voldemort/Dumbledore duel. I hated it. Absolutely loathed it. It's not so much that they changed it from canon - that I can live with. It's that they changed it from canon and made it worse, for no reason. If they had said, "Hey, lets see if we can make the most boring, uncreative and lamest duel possible." then it wouldn't have been much worse. It was, basically, two people standing opposite each other taking turns to shoot spells .

- The weird light shows in the Ministry with friend/foe colours. No idea what's going on with this. One theory: it's apparition, but a stunted form of it, due to the anti-apparition spells on the Ministry.

- Luna. My new favourite character, but I'm not gonna be suddenly going out and reading Harry/Luna fanfiction, because most fanfic authors characterise her terribly. Still, I now ship HP/LL canon-wise. It's all that much better for the fact that it's actually possible - though remotely so.

- Tonks: couldn't figure out if she was hot or not. It seems to depend completely on lighting and the angle at which you're looking at her. I think I'll say hot though.

Edit:

Was just re-watching the DoM scene...did anyone else notice how Luna uses Levicorpus? How are they gonna spin that when HBP comes around and the spell has already been used? Though, to be fair, the spell had a completely different effect than in the books...it sent the Death Eater flying 50 feet.

 

The film wasn't all that bad imo.

The only negatives I can really pick at are Ginny's characterisation, the lack of Quidditch, the weird ministry apparation, the set up of the DoM and the overall emo-ish/angsty theme to the film.

The directors were obviously playing up Ginny's character and that grated on my nerves something fierce. The DA scene where she (out of all of the members) manages to completely demolish the target had me rolling my eyes. If there was ever a scene for a H/G shipper, it was that one. Then the whole jealousy over H/C was annoying too.

The lack of quidditch wasn't that big of a deal, but it would've made the film more lighthearted or so imo. We didn't see much Harry-Draco interaction (apart from when they stepped off the Hogwarts Express) and I thought the quidditch fight would've been entertaining to watch.

That said, we wouldn't want anything in the film to encourage H/D shippers >_< we already have food for the H/G ones. I also spotted a scene for the Harry/Sirius shippers. Granted the scene was fatherly, but still.. it had me rolling my eyes and thinking; "Great, here's one for the slashers".

The apparation at the ministry was definitely weird. It wasn't really apparation per se, it was more like... shifting from one area to the next... and (in a few cases) randomly floating along at top speed >_< It had me going "wtf?!" a lot of the time.

The set up of the DoM. I think somebody above me already covered this, but yeah...it wasn't at all how I imagined it to be. It wasn't all that mysterious and the way th prophecies were laid out didn't really make sense to me. When you see rows upon rows of abnormally high shelves all housing fragile prophecies, you just know it's asking to be pushed over ... or in the movie's case, blasted over by Ginny's spell. Yet another one for the H/G shippers.

And finally...the overall angsty theme of the film had me cringing. It seemed slightly OTT and unnecessary. I know Harry was all "I wanna be alone" and "This is what I have to do", but I don't remember OotP being that angsty.

The casting of Bellatrix, Luna and Tonks was great. Bella was sufficiently psychotic-looking, Luna was sufficiently random and Tonks pretty much played her character out like it is in the books. I can't remember who said it before, but there was a lot for HONKS shippers in this film ... well, one can only hope anyway.

My rating would be 4/5 because, overall, it wasn't the trainwreck I expected it to be

 

There were a couple of 'wtf' moments for me, if I can remember what they are....um. I'll remember them as I write so these are in no particular order.

1) Dumbledore at the scene where Trelawney has been fired and Dumbledore allows her to stay at Hogwarts when he snaps at the students, something like 'haven't you all got studying to do?' which I really can't imagine Dumbledore doing. Then in the DOM during his duel with Voldemort where he kind of bats Harry away like he's an irritating bug (even though he is)...although I suppose that's the director trying to fit with the actor playing Dumbledore...Harris was a lot 'softer' whereas I can't imagine Gambon as a caring mentor for Harry...

2) Moody's staff and the whole three thumps on the floor and Headquarters appears....just no thanks.

3) The Ordinary Boys playing in the Gryffindor common room....ugh. Why, why would they do that? It was really out of place and unnecessary. And especially the 'boys will be booooys' when Seamus and Harry have a hissy fit...god.

4) Not only is Ginny more powerful than the others in the DA....but NIGEL? Who is Nigel? Some random add-in manages to knock Harry flying with a Stupefy even though he's about two years younger?

5) The effects of the spells. Stupefy simply knocked people flying, not knocking them unconscious, Levicorpus first levitated people, then knocked the Death Eater backwards in the DOM...just like the Stupefy one did earlier....confusing...the only one that worked right I think was Expelliarmus.

6) Umbridge and Filch being onto the DA from the beginning....did that happen in the books?

7) Voldemort in a suit at the station...I didn't get that. At all.

I can't really think of anymore except for the pointlessness of Lupin and the fact that he'd grown a beard to add to his collection of dodgy facial hair.

Helena Bonham Carter, Evanna Lynch and Imelda Staunton were the best parts of the film...they were pretty much all that were keeping it afloat for most of the time for me. I think Rickman was as good as he always is, but that he could have benefited from more screen time, as his lessons with Harry were always rushed. I loved his assessment with Umbridge though, "but you didn't get the position?" "...Obviously..."

The Centaurs were better than Grawp, he looked too computer animated and had the downside of being in love with Hermione after she bosses him around *rolls eyes*. Although to be honest, judging by the violence of the centaurs, I reckon they'd have shot Hermione when she threw herself at the one who got tied up.

Don't really have anything to say about the very end because I was willing it to end really quickly because I had to pee (TMI maybe? ). lol, so I completely blanked the office scene, anyone can tell me what exactly happened?

I think that's all now. Still the best of all the movie so far though.

 

The best part of the movie by far is right after Voldemort runs away Fudge just walks in and says "He's back!"
after seeing that i laughed for about 20 seconds.

The Weasley Twins were easily the two best characters in the movie. i say that only because im a huge weasley twins fan.

I liked dumbledore in the movie, he came when he needed, delivered a swift back hand to everyone, then left. At the trial just shows up puts everyone in their place then leaves, when Umbridge is kicking out Trelawny, Dumbledore comes in sets Umbridge straight then leaves, then when they come to arrest Dumbledore, he tells them whats what and just disappears. I also think Radcliff did the best job of portraying whinybitch!Harry, cause well thats all he did really. . .

personally i think the first movie was the best movie this one was just kinda meh, and is it me or did the dementors look different in this movie. . . maybe i'm just imagining things. . .

overall the movie was ok, but i really do wish they would just keep things the same as the books instead of changing things around so much, seriously the 4th and 5th movie could be retitled to "A Movie Loosely Based on Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire/Order of The Phoenix"

EDIT:
as a side note voldemort in the suit was kinda cool. If he wasn't so anti muggle then it would be pretty bad ass but the fact that voldemort wouldnt wipe his ass with a expensive muggle suit just kinda ruins it.

 

Finally saw it, thanks for telling me to go. Pretty good movie overall, probably the best Harry Potter movie to date.

 

Question, which may have already been asked: Why was James Potter not protrayed by Daniel Radcliffe in the flashback?

 

Presumably because they're father and son, not identical twins.

 

Why would he be? Seriously, what the hell?

 

I have to say that my favorite part of the whole movie was when Sirius called Harry "James" right before he died.

 

Probably because they are supposed to look almost exactly alike besides the eyes. If you are almost identical looking, one can usually replace the other quite easily. I do it all the time with my identical twin.

 

Is it just me, or does harry in the movies still lack green eyes? I mean, Contacts or CG or something and jet black hair wtf?

Either a wig or dye would solve that problem perfectly. Honestly.

As for the movie? It's a cockup, completely and entirely, nothing but the prophesy came out of that hunk of horse manure. Whats going to come out of the sixth movie? pussy!harry and stories of voldemorts youth? That's going to be great on camera.

 

Actually one of the cool things in my opinion is how umbridge kind of swatted the flying arrow away as it was heading for her... if her character wasn't such a bitch, I'd call her bad ass.

I mean honestly, that kind of skill would be awesome. Arrows fly and with a flick of your wrist they bouce off your shield... The Harry in the books could never pull that off.

I'm kind of glad with how they changed umbridges character... they didn't make her stupid... they made her creepy in a motherly dominatrix way... its so disturbing it works. She seems intelligent and you really could take her seriously...

Now is the time for them to take creative license with the books... with HBP next we need to have some one try and improve on it... and if the Deathly hollows leak is correct... By god i hope they get an awesome director and a miracle writer...

 

Concerning the "Who the fuck is Nigel?", in Goblet of Fire, Nigel gives Ron the box containing the hideous dress robes, thinking that Ron would get Harry's autograph for him.

As for the Order of the Phoenix, Helena Bonham Carter (Bella) was perfect. Completely psychotic. Luna was fantastic, and watching a making of thingy on TV, the girl who plays her is so, Luna-ish it's untrue. I don't, therefore, know if the acting is good, or if she simply isn't acting that much at all.

As for the film overall, I was underwhelmed in general, but pleased by specific performances. I just expect the next film to be even worse.

 

Right, just got to see it the other day.

In general it was ok. Certainly it was the best of the films so far. Was a tad slow at times, but it wasn't that bad. Acting was generally not too bad.

What I really liked though, was the portrayal of duelling in the Department of Mysteries. Especially the contrast between the way "normal" wizards duel, and the way wizards like Dumbledore and Voldemort duel. The sheer difference in scale was quite astounding. I also just liked the portrayal of the duels in general. Nicely put together as a constant flowing fight, rather than the volley ball tournament most fics describe.

Not totally sure about that weird apparation thing that both sides could do. I suppose it was nicely symbolic, and it looked good, which is all thats required for the films, I'm just not sure how it would actually translate into something from the books.

 

Luna was great (as expected), Shacklebolt was cool, Tonks was a tad meh, Bellatrix was good.

But:

Why was Bellatrix really scared when Harry came after her, until Voldemort appeared? I could understand if she was mocking him, but she didn't say anything and looked relieved when Voldemort came along...

 

Pros:

1. Luna was the embodiment of loli hotness!
2. Bella's devotion to Voldemort was done very well.
3. The broomstick escape along the Thames was awesome.

Cons:

1. The fight in the Department of Mysteries was downright ridiculous. We had shape-shifting Death Eaters, shape-shifting Order, and shape-shifting Voldemort.
2. The Bumblemore-Moldywart duel could have been far better.
3. Considering the fact that Harry is supposed to have an epiphany in regards to Ginny's sexiness, she's damn fugly.
4. Where the hell is Marietta Edgecombe?
5. Where the hell is the Quibbler article?
6. Where the hell is the portable swamp?
7. In short, Umbridge's reign was supposed to culminate in school wide insurrection, and it did not.
8. Voldemort and Draco Malfoy in muggle suits.
9. Voldemort in comparison to the Death Eaters. The arrival of Voldemort in a situation should provoke one reaction and one reaction only: oh shit. The Death Eaters' entrance was far too dramatic, and overpowered the arrival of Voldemort.