Chapter 140: Harry Potter Mania (Part 2: Order of the Phoenix Review)
Well, it’s about 11:45 pm on Wednesday and I’ve just arrived home from the fifth cinematic installment of the Harry Potter series. If you don’t want to have anything unintentionally ruined for you, mind the following.
***SPOILER ALERT***
The movie was fantastic. I love the way that David Yates directed both dramatically and visually. Even Emma Watson was acting a bit less with her eyebrows this time around. From the continuances of previous directors work (i.e. the Weasley Twins, Neville as the underdog hero, Ginny’s affections for Harry, etc.) to the fantastic camera work with the dream sequences, the cramming of nearly 900 pages into 2 hours and 15 minutes, and the excellent twists with Cho and the Veritaserum, Hagrid’s giant half-brother Grawp (who provides along with Hermione one of the funniest moments of the movie), and other such clever ways to get around side story lines, this was by far my favorite movie after the first viewing.
Seeing as how it was my favorite book it stands to reason, but the characterization due to excellent casting including Tonks (who I didn’t see nearly enough of), the amazing work, once again, of Jason Isaacs as Lucius Malfoy, and a brilliant job with the Luna Lovegood character. The action in the Department of Mysteries was fantastic. Other favorites include the flying sequences into London (early on brooms from Number 4 Privet Drive and later on Thestrals to the Ministry of Magic) which made me hoot and holler and surprisingly, one of the best beginnings I’ve seen with imagery of Dudley looking so tremendously ridiculous and bang on as “Big D” I burst out laughing at the sight of him and his gang.
So I should wrap this up at some point, but I think the only thing I was disappointed with that got left out was the St. Mungo’s trip to see Mr. Weasley and seeing Gilderoy and the Longbottoms there. The storyline with Neville’s parents is explained with Neville merely telling Harry his parent’s predicament and making Harry promise not to tell, but I think seeing his mum give him the gum wrapper is one of the most heart-breaking pieces of writing that J.K. Rowling had done. I also would have done with a bit more of Number 12 Grimmald Place, but these are minor gripes to be sure when placed against the background of how spectacular I really think this movie was.
After I get to see it again (which will most likely be very soon) I will definitely go through a bit more in depth with different parts of the movie vs. the book and everything else. I think I may even go through and do brief chapter analysis for all you crazies out there (I’m looking at you Della)!
To close, I went with Kristen tonight and we commented on the cultural phenomenon that the Harry Potter books are and how the mix of anticipation and regret for the 7th book is really one of the unique literary milestones of our lives. I’m still needing to get down to the local Barnes & Noble to reserve a copy. Hope they still have spots available, it’s supposed to be the biggest book release of all time. Pretty good for kids books, eh?