Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Today I watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the fifth and latest movie in the series. I quite enjoyed it. It's relative newness and freshness may be colouring my current thoughts on it, but I think this movie is the best of the bunch--which is a very good trick for most sequels. With notable exceptions, I find most sequels less enjoyable than the originals.

I've never read any of the Harry Potter novels, by J.K. Rowling, though I did try to read the first book a while ago. If memory serves, I gave up after the first few pages because I found the writing style, narrative, and language to be stilted and simplistic. I can't completely fathom why these novels are so popular among so many adults.

I have seen all the Harry Potter movies. Some were better than others, but I've enjoyed all of them with, as I noted above, the latest being the best so far. Harry didn't alienate his friends for too long, much to my relief, and this movie introduced and expanded upon interesting characters. The actress who played Dolores Umbridge was great--very creepy. Luna Lovegood was fun. The special effects were great, except for one brief second or so with fireworks that looked obviously computer-generated. The climax was well done--an extensive magical battle.

There were some parts of this movie I didn't like. Cho Chang annoyed me from her very first appearance in the previous movie (Goblet of Fire) and that didn't change in this latest--even before Cho Chang's forced confession. During the climax I was distracted throughout trying to figure out the identity of one of the students. Turns out she was Ginny Weasley--I guess I should have recognized her since Ginny does appear before the climax, but, oh well. I only know who she was now because I looked up the cast list with matched pictures (thanks, wikipedia!).

Also thanks to looking at the cast list, I discovered that Emma Thompson plays Professor Sybill Patricia Trelawney, a role she's had since the third movie. Now that I know it seems patently obvious, but I completely missed it.

Anywhoo, overall I liked this movie and I'm glad I watched it.

4.5 out of 5 stars.