Cliff's Notes version of the book

I love Harry Potter, OK? So before you freak out, let me get that out of the way. The book version "Order of the Phoenix" was oustanding. I also think that previous directors have done pretty good to great jobs of translating the books to film (though I must say things went a little downhill once Chris Columbus left.)

All that being said, here's the kicker:

The movie "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" played like a Cliff's Notes adaptation of the book.

It lopped off a lot of the charm and romance and heartfelt pathos of the book--- as well as a lot of the pure creative touches--- in order to get the main arc of the story down. On top of that, it made "adaptations" to the book in order to get the story moving along--- yet all these "compromises" were actually worse than what JK Rowling originally wrote!

Don't believe me? Here is only SOME of what is wrong with this movie:

--Poor devlopment of the Harry/Cho Chang arc (The kiss is about all you get. No real feeling behind it at all. No devlopement of Harry's crush. No final break up argument on Valentine's Day.)
--Making Cho into an evil snitch (which is why she and Harry broke up in the movie.) In the movie SHE is the one who betrays Harry. Stupid.
--No hospital scenes. No meeting of Neville's parents.
--Perfunctory explanation of Grimmaud Place
--Perfunctory development of Occlumency
--Harry gets to hear the prophecy while standing in the Department of Mysteries rather than later with Dumbledore. On top of this, he gets to hear the prophecy just by holding it in his hand. That makes no logical sense at all!
--The Department of Mysteries itself is compressed down into one room (the room with the prophecies.) All the cool rooms (with the blue lights, the 12 doors, the clocks, the brains, and so on) are all just ignored. Those were such tremendous inventions by JK Rowling--perhaps some of the most creative stuff in all the books-- that I can't believe they just cut them!
--The room with the arch is made into a really boring place.
--The battle scene is really short and rather stupid.
--Snape's memory of being tortured by James Potter and his argument with Lily Potter is compressed into literally a total of 4 seconds of film. That scence is so PIVOTAL to the rest of the book series that I can't believe they got away with not fully developing the scene.

On top of all these plot issues, the WORST part about this movie is that there was really no FEELING in it. The whole range of emotional arcs that are so well-developed in the book are done absolutely terribly in the movie. Yeah, Sirius dies. In the book, it is a devatating moment. In the movie, it's like "Oh, well." Harry, Ron and Hermione don't have many moments together. There is no laughing in the movie. There are no lighthearted moments. Almost every scene except one or two that could have developed the emotional attachment we feel to the characters has been summarily excluded.

Like one other reviewer said: The movie is too short, yet it feels too long.

That is, sorry to say, a perfect description of a hack job.

I am quite disappointed.

Darker is better!

Part of the fun of watching the Harry Potter films is watching the actors and the tone of the films age. Columbus created two cheery, mildly dark films that are fun yet candy-coated. Cuaron had a darker style and brought his actors into more mature form with a tighter faster-paced story. Newell showed the trio as the teenagers they've become while Yates created the first truly adult Harry Potter experience. I've read all the books and while I'm disappointed with some of the cuts I must say they've done wonderfully in capturing the spirit of the books. Order of the Phoenix is arguably the best in the series so far. Harry's become isolated and it's meant to be a darker story so I don't see the complaints on this end. It may not be as magical as the previous entries but neither was the book! Anyway, I highly recommend this film for Potter fans and simply casual film goers. It really shows how well the series is maturing and bridges the gap for the next two installments.

Not a great pick

I,too,have mixed feelings about the film.It certainly has left out or completely changed certain aspects of the novel.Unlike earlier films, this one strays from the plot line of the novel in several key ways. Since I have read the series from cover to cover a number of times, I was able to fill in the gaps. However, the friends who saw it with me were not able to do that because they did not know the characters/sequence of events in great detail. I will buy the DVD simply because I own the rest of the series and want to add it to the collection. I do, however, hope the next two films in the series are of higher quality and more true to the story line than this one.