Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Myself

I got my ultimate editions in the mail today for number 5 and 6. I watched through all the extras yesterday and now all that is left is the picture in picture commentaries. It's also probably a good idea to get some thoughts down now before the impending madness of the marathon coming up, where I probably won't have time to do proper entires. 

So here's where David Yates enters the series. And he's done every one since, right up to the end. When this one came out it was a lot of peoples favourites. I still like the 3rd one the most but his work on part one of the last instalment may have changed that. 

This series introduces my all time favourite Harry Potter character Dolores Umbridge, played to absolute perfection by Imelda Staunton. She's a certain kind of evil that manages to get under everyone's skin, a nightmare of pink fluffy bureaucracy. She's a joy to watch and really sinks her teeth into the role. 

Luna is also introduced and she's neat, just delightful. And the returning cast are great as always and the kids get better in each film. This one gets more political and a bit darker. But the most tense scene comes at the end in the hall of prophecies. We finally have the kids facing death eaters. It's superbly directed, they cut out all the sound and music and there's barely any light. It's even more impressive having discovered the entire thing was on green screen and the set never existed. Now that I look at it it seems obvious, how else were they going to do it? But by that stage in the film your generally invested in the story that you don't notice. 

It's also where we get Helena Bonham Carter's Bellatrix Lestrange introduced. And she seems happy playing bug-nuts insane. 

But then at the end we finally get a full on wizard battle, first with the Order against Death Eaters and then the big finale of Voldemort and Dumbledore. There's some cool stuff there, they manage to make good action scenes from people pointing sticks at each other. It should be ridiculous but it's pretty awesome. 

This is also where you start to notice the colour grading, they seem to push it further in each film. It's manageable here but I really don't like where it went in the next film. I don't like the music much either, except Umbridge's theme, that's cool. 

But overall this is definitely one of the better films of the series for me.