harry potter and the order of the phoenix

Yesterday, Lisa and I had a fun lil’ trip to Raleigh, where we went to the IMAX Theater at the Exploris Museum to catch Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in IMAX. This was the second time that we’d seen the movie and the third time that I’ve seen a feature film in IMAX: click here for my report from seeing Superman Returns at the same theater a year ago.

The first time that I saw the movie of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, I said that I had liked it but that I hadn’t been completely satisfied with the movie. At the time I was right in the middle of the book, trying to finish re-reading the entire series before Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows came out. This is still the densest novel in the entire series and there’s no way ...

I haven’t struggled this hard with thoughts about a movie since writing my review of Peter Jackson’s King Kong.

It was good, but too much of the book was missing for me to be completely satisfied.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is my favorite book of them all in the series (so far). It’s also the one that I happen to be in the middle of reading as part of my quest to read all of the Harry Potter books before the release of the final one next Saturday. So maybe those things factored into how much I liked it. I’ve no doubt that if I had never read the Harry Potter books, I would have a whole different feeling about it’s movie adaptation.

Tonally, they got this movie right so far as how it captures the spirit of the book. Especially with how corrupt ...