Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
It’s darker, moodier and rather good. No more school japes, wizard competitions or games of Quidditch, it’s all rather more serious as Voldemort gathers his forces to control the Ministry of Magic and a certain Mr H Potter recruits ‘Dumbledore’s Army’ to thwart him. The book for those who’ve read it is truly enormous but David Yates does a great job of fitting all the relevant bits into just over two hours and some of the regular character do get rather short changed as a result. Hagrid, Malfoy the younger, Professor McGonagall are effectively cameos this time around but something had to give I suppose. Imelda Staunton almost steals the show as Dolores Umbridge whose pink suits get progressively darker as she does and I didn’t spot it was Ralph Fiennes until the final battle playing Voldemort.
If you’re in anyway interested in Harry Potter it’s worth going to see and with the last book being published at the end of this month and with two more movies Potter Mania still has some way to go.
I enjoyed it, but I have this nagging feeling that it’s like “we have to make the movie… okay done, managed to cram 75% of the story in… onto the next”.
Was it Order of the Phoenix where Ron got a place on the Quidditch team and ended up being the hero? No Quidditch in the movie, and again, no Dobby (just that miserable little shite-hawk Kreacher).
Transformers anyone?