Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Analysis/Review
Preface:
Re-watched it in blu-ray on a 4k TV.
Harry Potter fan.
AKA Angsty!Harry book. The movie is basically the same. People hate on this book — I’m not one of them. It is one of my favorites of the seven. So again, biased. Regardless of how the book is, is the movie any good? Oh yea.
Likes:
- Umbridge is spot on. Perfect casting and acting. So powerful, so well cast, so well scripted. Ugh. As perfect as Alan Rickman is to Snape. She inspires hatred within the views as well as the book version. The pink and the cats were also on point.
- The montages are perfect. There are a variety of them and they all work so well in the film. The decrees, the training scenes, and so on. Each one of them flowed very naturally.
- Speaking of flow, the film has a plot cadence that moved well.
- The way they showed Harry struggling with his connection with Voldemort was excellent. I loved those scenes. The little neck twist thing was a nice touch. The snake vision scene was particularly well done.
- Sirius’s last words being James aimed at Harry was so utterly tragic and perfect.
- Loved the Death Eater effects of the darkness spiral thing. It’s very cool. The effects of the battles had a great sleekness.
- The Dumbledore versus Voldemort battle was epic and the effects were great. Fire and water!
- The amount of other characters being developed. Neville, Luna, and Cho. The small bits of the order.
- Speaking of Luna, her casting was great. She is Luna. Her chemistry and dialogue was wonderful.
Dislikes:
- Effects on Grawp are…not that great. To be fair, it is a hard effect.
- The tension between him and Dumbledore felt subdued. After all those problems, they just have a simple talk? Eh. The book had an argument and that worked better, I think.
- His relationship with Sirius did not come across as strong as it could have been. It felt slightly shallow, save for the talk in Grimmauld.
- The Department of Mysteries sequence felt too short. Needed some more padding to strengthen its significance.
- More Order of the Phoenix members. Tonks for sure.
Conclusion:
This is one of my favorite of the films, if not my most favorite. I think I’ve seen it the most number of times, maybe tied with Goblet of Fire. It is one of the few (like Goblet of Fire) I can drop in on whenever I want to or start without having watched the rest of the series in order. There is a lot of content in it and intrigue that I like. Sure, it has its weak points, stemming from not relaying the source material’s nuances, but it works. I like the themes and I like how it was constructed. I love it.
