Movie Review: Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix

Poster
My Rating: 4Stars

This evening I saw the movie “Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix” at UA IMAX Theater, MegaBox, Kowloon Bay.

The most amazing part of the movie is the IMAX experience. If you live in a city where this movie is shown on IMAX you MUST choose it. I think it gives a good preview of what HD or digital projection theater movies will be like in the near future, when it becomes more prevalent.

I thought with the price of the IMAX version (almost doubled the normal ticket price in Hong Kong), there would not be so many young kids in the audience as there was. Apparently kids of a certain age did not have to pay and they were allow to sit on their parents’ laps for the movie. This definitely was not good when we have to pay such a high price for the experience.

I never finished this episode of the Harry Potter book series, even though I started the book five times over the past 5 years. For those who are not familiar with this book, it is one of the thicker one in the series, but that is not my only excuse. I cannot say that I am those who read the book before the movie, but with Harry Potter, it had been the exception to my rule until now.

This movie skipped over many parts of the book like the previous adaptations; at least for what I’ve read. Within minutes it already reached the part where I had left off (chapter eight) in the book this past 5 attempts. I guess a picture does equate to a thousand of words, and if the screenplay had stayed any closer to the book the movie would have been much longer than 130 minutes.

As with the previous Harry Potter movies, I assume it was also a very accurate adaption. The visual effects were great as usual. The plot at times were a bit slow and I found myself noticing the number of kids around me talking loudly.

The last 20 minutes of the movie was in IMAX 3D. They definitely chosen the correct part of the movie for the 3D effect.

Aside from the interruptions of the “other people’s” kids, this movie was “okay”. like the previous movie, “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire“, I found this movie mostly occupied with beautiful sceneries and special effects rather than an intriguing plot. In this particular case, I cannot say if it was due to the original book or the fault of the screenplay. May be I should finish the book and find out.

Of course, trying to top the book is also a difficult thing for the director, when he has to consider the fact that majority of his audiences will have read the book, hence familiar with the plot, and would be looking for other stimuli when they watch the movie.

So, if you are a Harry Potter fan, this is definitely a movie for you, but if you had yet to read the first book in the series, you may want to consider the IMAX experience as a reason to see the movie. Then again the DVD will come out very soon.

Rating Legend:
5Stars Not to be missed
4Stars Wait for the DVD
3Stars Buy from iTunes Store
2Stars Rent it if you can
1Stars Waste your time elsewhere

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