While Order of the Phoenix was my least favorite book in the Harry Potter series, the movie turned out better than I expected. Granted, it's still wasn't too amazing, and there were many liberties taken to cut the content down to fit it within the time limit. Personally, I liked the first half of the movie, but then it went downhill, with how the events were portrayed. It was odd sometimes when there was a scene and you thought, they could have cut that out, and then when they missed something, you're thinking, the should have included that instead. Everything was sped up, and as such, it didn't leave as much of an impact as it should have. For example, the character Umbridge, in the book, she is extremely annoying and you feel an unfairness in the world, while in the movie, because her punishments and actions are truncated, you might not even develop that feeling and hatred towards her (that said, the actor was pretty good). *spoiler alert* Another event that comes up would be Sirius, his death was so quick that there was no shock. You didn't realize what had happened until many seconds after, by which you don't really care about the character anyway. *end spoiler* The climax of the film was very truncated, that is, the time Harry and co spent in the Department of Mysteries. The special effects were... kinda lame, especially the way the Death Eaters (and later, the Aurors) warped around. While the fight between Voldemort and Dumbledore wasn't anything spectacular, again, too reliant on the spectacle of special effects and not on the strain, wit and cunning of each participant (and when Voldemort took over Harry, I didn't realize what had happened until much later). There was also an overuse of flashbacks, which seemed like wasting time. So once again, like many movies, if you've read the book, prepare to be disappointed, and if you haven't, prepared to be confused in a few areas. Nevertheless, the movie turned out to be better than I expected, but still boring in some parts.
