Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)

Credit where credit is due: this movie took over 800 pages of book and allowed it to move at a breakneck pace. The biggest problem is this movie had to cut out so much and this leaves the movie with a very empty feeling. In addition, so much of he book relied on you being in Harry's head, something I don't think made the transition well to the big screen

I think Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is one of the best movies I've ever seen. Of course, I love all the films of the saga, but that one is my favorite. Based on the book by J.K Rowling, it is a perfect mixture of action, suspense, adventure and mystery.Harry, Ron and Hermione enter the 5th year at Hogwarts, which is controlled by the Ministry of Magic, notably by Dolores Umbridge. She sets up a directorial regime and forbids students to practice defenses spells. So the three friends created "Dumbledore's Army" to practice defense against the forces of evil under Harry's teachings.I find Daniel Radcliffe (as Harry Potter), Rupert Grint (as Ron Weasley) and Emma Watson (as Hermione Granger) are so great for their roles. They are so realistic. They are just perfect for their characters. Because they make you feel the emotions of the character well.And the director David Yates made a very fabulous final result. The story is extremely imaginative and is, in my opinion, one of David Yates's best. The composer for the soundtrack of this film was Nicholas Hooper and he made an amazing job. When I listen to one of them, I feel so good. They are so expressive. They reflect very well the moments when they are used. They are so pretty.This film was produced by David Heyman and David Barron, and I find their work extremely amazing. The costumes are absolutely awesome and fun. I think they are a big part of the extravagance and the originality of the movie. And last but not least, the special effects are so beautiful. Between the Dementors, that are so fantastic, the duel between Lord Voldemort and Dumbledore in the Ministry of Magic, the chamber of secrets, that is well done... that's so awesome to watch.So honestly, I really recommend this movie! If you are a person who wants adventure, suspense and mystery, this is the film to see! You must see it.Amandine

I hated this film deeply when it was released, today I decided I'd give it another go - alas, I still hate this film - even more than before. The reasons: 1) 'I feel more lonely than ever before'; 'I am sorry for you, cos you never knew love and friendship'; 'We've got something to fighting for' - these are just three lines the script writer (or whoever decided to put them into Harry's mouth) should be hanged, drawn and quartered. Or, at least, publicly ridiculed - for they transformed the Harry JKR wrote into Percy Weasley, for only Percy could've said these lines - cheesy, false and vomit-inducing. 2) I suspect David Yates loves Stanley Kubrick movies, especially The Shining (two little girls scene - immobile, in the centre of the frame) - for he used this approach to framing just too many times while shooting this film (and the subsequent Potter films shot by different DoPs, so it's definitely the director's fault.) While it's certainly served its purpose in the S Kubrick films, continuous usage of the same approach in HP is maddening, to say the least - it just destroys the natural flow of the narration! 3) Dolores Umbridge treatment - instead of pure evil (as described by JKR both in the book and in the subsequent interviews), Yates & Goldenberg made her quite an average power-loving bureaucrat, nothing special (conveniently forgetting the fact it was her who sent the Dementors to Harry) 4) Music - it seems disconnected from the narration and sometimes inappropriate (like re-using the Escaping from Privet Drive track for end credits. 5) Continuity & lack of logic: for ex., how come the Occlumency scene was put before Harry & Weasley's leaving Hogwarts for Grimmauld Place? Why did Sirius give Harry that Order of the Phoenix photograph at the station? It should've happened earlier. 6) Unnecessary 'heavy' special effects, like apparition of the Grimmauld Place house (making it appear like JKR described it would've been much more effective and cheaper to boot.) 7) Dialogues (in addition to what I wrote about those infamous Harry lines) - it seems like the scriptwriter took some of the lines directly from the book, but didn't bother (or just was unable) to make them sound logical in the context of the film, which resulted in, for ex., Umbridge's speech at the beginning-of-the-year feast (and Ron's reaction to it) stupid and illogical. Certainly this was the worst Potter film. I fail to understand how Mr Yates managed to appropriate the filming rights for the entire Potter franchise after this.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the first Harry Potter movie directed by David Yates. Some fans love Yates and his different style, but there are people who don't like him, myself included. Sure, he's the one responsible for my favourite half of the series, where Harry is growing up and everything is darker. But in the movies the characters aren't as deep and the darkness feels more like a colour scheme than a change in the story telling.Yates's style chooses action over the story - which makes no sense when considering what the novel was like. Order of the Phoenix had very little action, but it explored wonderfully, for example, Harry after seeing Voldemort returning and seeing Cedric Diggory being brutally murdered. In the movie you can see it bothers Harry, he is incredibly angry, but that's that. If you haven't read the book it only seems like Harry is having his puberty and therefore a bit moody, even if you could claim he has a case of PTSD. There are many emotional scenes in the novel that weren't included in the movie. They were completely forgotten or replaced by something really, really weird, apart from few that were important to the plot - they saved the scenes that were important when looking at this one movie, but ignored the story as a whole, and they seemed to figure character development was not that important. Harry Potter series is not seven separate stories it's one story in seven parts. At this point it's clear the filmmakers didn't care about the story as much as making the movies and making fans watch them and just get through the whole series. But it's lovely to see the film allowing few characters develop properly: like Neville during the DA. They tried to fake Ginny developing as well by only showing us that she is indeed amazing with spells. Still the filmmakers have forgotten to give her any sort of personality. I love her in the books but in movies she's just an empty husk - skillful of course, but she's not as interesting as in the books. ' Order of Phoenix is over-simplified and is trying to force a story into a film form in the easiest way possible. Yes, sure, they didn't have so much time to focus on the stories individually considering the stars were growing up but still, this is ridiculous.