It's the writing, stupid.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: A review of the film.
I enjoyed parts of this movie very much, and quite a lot not so much. However, I have to say that all the bits I most enjoyed (the flight up the Thames, Harry teaching the other members of the DA, George's and Fred's magnificent exit, and the wizard duels) were mainly visual or, if you like filmic, eye-candy.
Not that it was original eye-candy. There was a lot of "referencing" other movies, and the CGI of Gawp (ref:King Kong) was dreadful (there was one shot where the scaling made him look no bigger than Harry and Hermione.) So were the centaurs. It is also a mistake to reference a moment in LotR and not do it as well. (I'm referring to the firework dragon.)
Admittedly, it's a horrible book to adapt. It's long with a huge cast list, and there's a lot of quite intricate plotting and foreshadowing, and teenage angst. Though I think they were wise to abandon the Pensieve as being too non-visual (and taking up too much time), it does mean the oppressiveness which is the book's pervading atmosphere is confined to Umbridge's antics. There are too many characters and incidents to deal with in less than three hours, and so a lot was either blue-pencilled or landed up on the cutting room floor. The result was patchy, choppy, and didn't always make sense. It lacked the central drive and concentration on the central trio of characters that allowed Prisoner of Azkaban, the last film to take such liberties with the plot, to work so well. The result was that only Harry, Sirius and Luna were allowed any space (and lines) to develop their personalities, though all three actors took their opportunities! Whatever their acting ability, all the other characters, particularly Ron and Hermione suffered badly, as their sub-plot in the book was eliminated. It must have seemed an easy choice. However, it contributes hugely to Harry's alienation, which is the book's major theme - one that the film hardly acknowledges, except in the last scene, which loses impact because there is so little to actually resolve. It even means that Snape is almost eliminated from the movie. I never thought I'd be sorry for the loss of Quidditch, but the complete absence of a mention, when banning Harry from playing was one of the worst things Umbridge did to him, seems, well, odd, and Ron's moment of triumph, and Harry and Hermione's reaction to it, vanishes as well.
It is easy to see what happened. In order to get everyone to the Ministry of Magic for the big action sequences the scriptwriters had to take shortcut after shortcut, so it all seems terribly arbitrary and easy. (Incidentally, how could Umbridge and Co get into the Room of Requirement, and isn't this going to make some major plot points in The Deathly Hallows invalid?) However, during this process they failed to distil the essence of the novel. Most of the faults in this movie lie with the scripting and editing. I am not too happy about the superior book The Half Blood Prince being in the hands of the same team, particularly as that is even less visual.
Three stars. Just.
I enjoyed parts of this movie very much, and quite a lot not so much. However, I have to say that all the bits I most enjoyed (the flight up the Thames, Harry teaching the other members of the DA, George's and Fred's magnificent exit, and the wizard duels) were mainly visual or, if you like filmic, eye-candy.
Not that it was original eye-candy. There was a lot of "referencing" other movies, and the CGI of Gawp (ref:King Kong) was dreadful (there was one shot where the scaling made him look no bigger than Harry and Hermione.) So were the centaurs. It is also a mistake to reference a moment in LotR and not do it as well. (I'm referring to the firework dragon.)
Admittedly, it's a horrible book to adapt. It's long with a huge cast list, and there's a lot of quite intricate plotting and foreshadowing, and teenage angst. Though I think they were wise to abandon the Pensieve as being too non-visual (and taking up too much time), it does mean the oppressiveness which is the book's pervading atmosphere is confined to Umbridge's antics. There are too many characters and incidents to deal with in less than three hours, and so a lot was either blue-pencilled or landed up on the cutting room floor. The result was patchy, choppy, and didn't always make sense. It lacked the central drive and concentration on the central trio of characters that allowed Prisoner of Azkaban, the last film to take such liberties with the plot, to work so well. The result was that only Harry, Sirius and Luna were allowed any space (and lines) to develop their personalities, though all three actors took their opportunities! Whatever their acting ability, all the other characters, particularly Ron and Hermione suffered badly, as their sub-plot in the book was eliminated. It must have seemed an easy choice. However, it contributes hugely to Harry's alienation, which is the book's major theme - one that the film hardly acknowledges, except in the last scene, which loses impact because there is so little to actually resolve. It even means that Snape is almost eliminated from the movie. I never thought I'd be sorry for the loss of Quidditch, but the complete absence of a mention, when banning Harry from playing was one of the worst things Umbridge did to him, seems, well, odd, and Ron's moment of triumph, and Harry and Hermione's reaction to it, vanishes as well.
It is easy to see what happened. In order to get everyone to the Ministry of Magic for the big action sequences the scriptwriters had to take shortcut after shortcut, so it all seems terribly arbitrary and easy. (Incidentally, how could Umbridge and Co get into the Room of Requirement, and isn't this going to make some major plot points in The Deathly Hallows invalid?) However, during this process they failed to distil the essence of the novel. Most of the faults in this movie lie with the scripting and editing. I am not too happy about the superior book The Half Blood Prince being in the hands of the same team, particularly as that is even less visual.
Three stars. Just.