Good adventure movie, little characterization - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Reviews

This review measures this film to the previous installments, not the books. If you are a fan of the movie series, you may be disappointed. Taken alone, the movie is pretty good. But what made the first several movies great is lacking here, it just doesn't hold up. The screenwriter and director chose to spend the majority of the movie moving the story along at a breakneck pace, and focusing on new secondary characters that they must have thought were whimsical. The movie merely touches characterization, never delving much deeper than an afterthought. What made the other movies so great were the little moments between the adventures displaying the nature of its main characters, giving windows into their friendships and placing the viewer into their daily lives at Hogwarts school. This movie seems like a series of events rather then giving us a sense of what a year at Hogwarts was like. It's quite unfortunate, because while the main plot line holds up, I came away feeling like I really didn't have a sense the motivation of any character beyond Harry. Each film should give a sense of growth for the characters, you should see how and why they have changed over the course of the year. The characters in this film didn't develop, sure they did new things and deeper changes in their relationships were hinted at, but an insight was never offered. The previous movies were about a group of friends, seen through the eyes of one individual. In the end, the focus of this movie was Harry and his adventures - everyone else is just background along for the ride. Other decisions by the director were poorly made, the style of the previous films was largely disgarded. The previous movies brought you to another world, and the fantastic elements within felt natural and fit. Some sequences were too bright, while others too dark - it was very inconsistant and whole lacked the beautiful style of the others. The presentation of this film makes several "magical" aspects seem cartoonish and goofy. Instead of feeling the oppression, confusion and fear felt by the students by having them complain and commiserate (a move that previous movies utilized and help bring more sense of the charaters to the viewer) much of these plot points are moved along with a wasteful, and cheesy film-within-a-newspaper gimmick. A further complaint, was the addition and changes made that were seemed contradictory to what was established in previous films to a almost ridiculous level. (For example, since when can wizards zoom around as untouchable mist and shoot spells?) The filmmakers must assume that you know the story and have read the books. To me the story seemed very jumpy - things just happen and you really don't know what is going on unless you've read the book or are paying REAL close attention to every line of dialoge (as they may attempt to explain away these story gaps in a passing phrase). If I hadn't read the books, I'd come away utterly confused. A quick word as someone who saw the first few movies and then read the books. I disagree with what they chose to cut versus what they kept. Much of what they left out would have helped the characterization, and what they did keep (such as the grawp character) came off as silly and took screen time away from more important issues. Rather then subtle nods to the parts of the novel that were cut, these allusions just made the movie more confusing. Not well done at all. What was done well: The acting of the students was superb. They made the best with what little screen time they had - some subtle characterization was portrayed well by the actors with looks and the nature of how they delivered lines. (It's just too bad we didn't get more screen time to develop these point further). Gary Oldman was great as Sirius Black - again able to portray a good relationship with Harry in little screen time (I would have liked another sceen or two to make me care for him more though - the end didn't ring as heavily without). Lastly, one good decision the director made was the potrayal of Umbridge's reign of terror - the parallels to nazi Germany were not missed. (Too bad the students' reaction and rebellion to this is barely scratched). In the end, as an adventure story - the move was great. As a Harry Potter movie - not so much. Let's hope they are setting up the last two films with this installment - and that we'll see a return of the great characterization of the past with a return of the old screenwriters and producers (who were sorely missed from this film - I wonder what they were doing instead?). I wanted to like this film better than I did, but just could not - Disappointing.