wild about harry....

I will shut up about Gypsy for a while (you'll be hearing plenty about it after I actually see it, and you know mere words are not enough to even begin to describe my excitement....) and talk about Harry Potter instead. I saw Order of the Phoenix on Sunday morning (showing you what a complete and total heathen I am... no church for me on Sunday mornings...). The audience was full of kids, of course, so I was a little worried, but as soon as the film started rolling, there was not a peep out of anybody.

The film is a who's who of who is great in the world of British acting: Richard Griffiths, Ralph Fiennes, Alan Rickman, Gary Oldman, Maggie Smith, Jason Isaacs, Michael Gambon, Robbie Coltrane, and Emma Thompson were all back as recurring characters, along with our teenage trio (Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint). New to the cast, in another bout of truly inspired casting (Rickman as Snape is so perfect it gives me chills every time he opens his mouth, and Kenneth Branagh as Gilderoy Lockhart in an earlier film... Perfect, perfect, perfect) for this film are Imelda Staunton (so, so evil as Delores Umbridge) and Helena Bonham Carter as released Death Eater Bellatrix Lestrange.

Let's see.... the books are so wonderful, and have the ability to draw the reader in so vividly, creating a mental picture of all these magical places, it is hard for me to imagine how the filmmakers even got started at bringing these to life. But they do a really good job. The castle and grounds are mostly how I would imagine them to be.

Of course, there just isn't room in a 2 hour movie to cover everything in the book, but the highlights are hit and hit pretty well. There were only a few things in the movie that were changed, and they didn't bother me (too much). As part of the series, I think it was very well done. Roger Ebert reviewed the film in the Sun Times and totally missed the point, I think. He hoped the other films would not be as dark (HAHAHA. Hello??) and wondered where the joy of Harry had gone. If you've been following along at all, the boy doesn't have a whole lot to be joyful about, Roge.... But anyway.

So. As part of the series, yes, 2 thumbs up. I don't know how the movie would stand by itself - if someone was coming new to the series I don't know if they'd quite get it, without seeing the other movies or at least reading the source material. It is very clearly a transitional movie, creating more questions than it answers. But it did its job well, and was a nice way to spend a Sunday morning.