Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (film)

[mmcirvin]

I liked it. Still not as much as Prisoner of Azkaban, which is an amazing gem of a movie, but more than Goblet of Fire because the plot wasn't dominated by a silly contrivance like the Tri-Wizard Tournament. So, like its predecessor, it's become my second favorite of the film series, I think.

At this point the series is starting to get dark and political, and Harry Potter actually takes a leadership role and starts to behave like a protagonist! Coming out of the theater I overheard some people expressing disappointment that there wasn't more wondrous magical wondrousness and Quidditch and such, so it may lose part of the Harry Potter movie audience.

I still haven't read any of the books, so my enjoyment isn't affected by comparing the movies to the books.

Comments

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

I like it as well as Azkaban because Gary Oldman has a good role and he has plenty of time to milk it in this one. Likewise I'm looking forward to Helena Bonham-Carter's performances to come.

I thought the visuals of the ending battle, though consisting of much more unexplained magic instead of the, at times, laboriously-explained magic of the book, was every bit as wondrous as the Sorting Hat or the early scenes of ghosts and paintings as Hogwarts or Quidditch were initially established.

I don't know if you got to see this one in IMAX, but the major drama of the last 20 minutes beginning and ending upon Harry's departure from and return to Hogwarts in the film, is in 3D. 3D IMAX has a bit of trouble in high-contrast visuals leaking through into both eyes, and there's a good bit of that going on in the room full of the crystal balls, but subsequent scenes are lighter and just look plain spectacular.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Carter had a smaller part than I expected here--she basically functions as Odd Job, the villain's quirky badass henchman. I assume she's more significant later.

I did get the sense that some things had been abbreviated from more extensive treatments in the book that I was missing. Tonks is introduced and then hardly used (the actress who plays her is gorgeous, though). Sam tells me the role of one missing character was shifted to Cho Chang to jettison a whole subplot from the screenplay.

I think my favorite bit in the whole thing was the brief scene on the King's Cross platform--it's a low-key, utterly shocking moment.

[rimrunner.livejournal.com]

I wish I liked Helena Bonham Carter more, but I've never been able to enjoy her work. It's a fairly irrational response, I guess, but there you have it.

I did like that we got more Gary Oldman, and this one felt less paint-by-numbers than Goblet.

Azkaban had the advantage of being directed by someone who was interested in making a movie as opposed to adapting a book.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I should see more of Alfonso Cuaron's movies sometime. Daniel Kloves' screenplay was good (and my impression from readers is that most of them regard Azkaban as Rowling's best-plotted book), but the direction really made that movie shine.

[sanspoof.livejournal.com]

Exact agreement. The third one had the beautiful time-travel structure, the active befriend-the-hippogriff/use-the-hippogriff ongoing plot element, and was generally quite nicely put together. I should rewatch it.
One of the guys in my class said that he'd brought his little daughter to see this one, apparently unthinking, and was disappointed and somewhat resentful to find that it was not really a little-kid movie. It seems that we really, really do a bad job in distinguishing age-appropriateness/tone from previews?

[rimrunner.livejournal.com]

The not insignificant numbers of parents who thought Pan's Labyrinth was a children's movie because it was a fantasy featuring a child protagonist, even though it was rated R, tend to support your statement.

(Well, I'd also sort of boggle that anyone would think that a Guillermo del Toro movie was meant for children, but since the director of Spy Kids also made Sin City, the El Mariachi trilogy, and parts of Grindhouse and From Dusk Till Dawn, anything's possible.)

[tomscud.livejournal.com]

Though you haven't read the books, your assessment of the films' qualities seems to indicate that the quality of the films roughly tracks that of the books.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I really didn't like the first two movies that much, but I assumed this had less to do with JK Rowling's writing--I could see those stories being perfectly serviceable kiddie novels--than with Chris Columbus's habit of directing the film versions as loving, leisurely tours of the books, pausing to demonstrate to the audience the full sparkly wondrousness of every detail. It says something that Chamber of Secrets is the longest movie in the series, and Sorcerer's Stone the third longest by a hair, even though the books they're adapted from are the shortest by far.

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

I recall that the first two books were literal translations to the screen, but I blamed authorial control over the screenplay and figured the director was doing the best he could when he was basically deprived the use of cinematic language. I didn't think it was the director's dunderheadedness.

The second director was an improvement, but the third book had already passed the point, stretched as it was in the second movie, where a movie could conceivably cover every scene and still remain a reasonable length--and the books were known to be getting longer-- certainly book four was out by the time of movie three, and possibly book five.

I'm listening to the audio of book 7 (no spoilers, as I'm halfway through) and both versions, Jim Dale and Stephen Fry, are 19 hours or more. Also, Jim Dale does real voices, while Stephen Fry just does variations on Stephen Fry. Which is okay, because Stephen Fry has vocal chords made from the finest tweed, while many of Jim Dale's voices sound like variations on a hoarse scotsman.

length

[notr.livejournal.com]

I wonder if, once the movies are done, ITV or somebody might take on making a TV series of the whole story. There aren't really strong enough breaking points in each book to split them up into two or three movies per book, but the chapters are certainly episodic enough to make decent TV episodes out of a couple at a time.

You'll love the book.

[notr.livejournal.com]

I thought this was a very good movie but a truly crappy adaptation. Of the movies so far, if you read only one of the books, I'd pick this one.

Obviously, adapting any novel, especially ones these long, to movie length means cutting out a lot of subplots. While that was done well in Azkaban and Goblet, though, in this story the very important undercurrents of teen angst and self-doubt and mistrust of friends were completely lost, and I think the movie lacks a lot of the emotional depth of the book. Instead of doubting Sirius as he becomes distant, we see Harry hang on his every sporadic word. Instead of a coming-of-age struggle, we get Harry stepping up with only the briefest hesitation to run Dumbledore's Army, and holding his band of friends together by inspiring them to achieve. Even Cho's apparent betrayal earns her only a quiet awkward moment. Instead of a story of the Order and D.A. miraculously finding their way clear of the deep rifts created by the repeated trampling of an oppressive enemy, it turned into a story of overturning the enemy through solidarity and persistence.

What the movie did include, I thought it portrayed well. I particularly liked the way it commented on No Child Left Behind more directly than the book, though at the same time I could have done with a little less direct homage to The Wall.

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

Azkaban is still my favorite. Alfonso Cuaron simply has the best directorial instincts, and Thewlis and Oldman worked some really good chemistry. You just can't top that. Additionally, Cuaron's visual grammar is just so gorgeous and whimsical -- the clock-hand motifs, the changing of the seasons, the shaking of the tree, all very lyrical and beautiful.

You are right that Order of the Phoenix comes a very close second. I'm very pleased they're keeping David Yates on to direct the next film. He has a very deft touch. All his work doing dark, gritty police dramas and such on British telly really pays off here -- he gets the tone totally right. As a reader of the books, I really appreciate how well he understands the growing darkness, maturity, and emotional tenor of the later books.

Also, Helena Bonham Carter freaked me out, which was awesome.