Potter Mania

I was a little bit late (well, only two days!) on getting to see the latest installment of the Harry Potter movies, but I did make it into the theatre last night. I dragged Brodie along with me which made it even more interesting since he hasn't read all of the books; me on the other hand, I'm somewhat fanatical.

"Order of the Phoenix" isn't my favorite book, so I wasn't expecting as much from this movie as I had from "Prisoner of Azkaban." To put it simply, it was a pretty good film except that it skimmed the surface of some parts that I thought were a great part of the 5th book. Which, what can I say, it's a move adaptation of a book that happens to be 870 pages so the director has to pick and choose what is most essential to the overall plot of the upcoming three movies. The part that I missed most was the focus on Harry and friend's OWL's. May be this part really touched home as I was reading the book because my friends and I were fretting about ACT's and such, but I really missed the importance of these tests in the movie. The director briefly touched on them as Professor Delores Umbridge announced that should be studying for them and then again as Hermione exclaimed that they were hardly prepared for the OWL's. Moviegoers never got an answer as to how our students did on them, which is important because of Harry's aspirations to become an Auror. But, as I said earlier, it is simply a movie taken from an 800+ page book, so the director had to pick and choose what to include.

I was very amused at how the actors portraying Harry, Ron, and Hermione are all growing up and out of the gawky teenage stage that we saw in the last movie. Daniel Radcliffe particularly is growing up exactly how one would expect his character to appear; he's rather short and somewhat lanky, which is how you would expect Harry, the unexpected hero, to appear. Rupert Grint, who portrays Ron Weasley, is shooting up to be a lanky bean pole; rather how I had imagined Ron to be in the novels. The only thing about Emma Watson's Hermione Granger that bothers me is that I think she should have bushier hair, not those soft cute curls that we see. However, her know-it-all attitude is appropriately portrayed by Watson. I think I remember reading that all three actors have agreed to stay on for the remaining films which is great. That's how it should be.

Overall, I'm glad that the book is coming out so close to the movie. It has really gotten me back into Potter mania, although I'm trying to avoid reading any of the articles and speculation surfacing on the web. I just want to enjoy it by myself, page by page! I'm also bittersweet that this is the final book; certainly some tears are going to flow as I finish the book!