Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

There's only one way to see the Harry Potter movies these days. That's right, I'm talking IMAX-3D. This movie was LARGER THAN LIFE!!!

Of course I refer first and foremost to Richard Griffiths, who only seems to be gaining weight by the hour. At this rate, he'll need his own theater to perform Equus on Broadway next season. Daniel Radcliffe and the rest of the cast next door. And seeing him on an IMAX screen doesn't make him look any skinnier. Luckily he did not appear in any of the 3D scenes.

All fat jokes aside, this movie was weird. The 5th and 6th installments of the 7 book series are the darkest and serve mostly as development and set-up for the final book, so the book was largely uneventful until the final 15 minutes or so. Regardless, the dream sequences with Voldemort, and the dilectably evil Dolores Umbridge reminded me how tense I can get while watching these movies, especially on the big screen (man, the 7th movie is going to be INTENSE!).

I am always so amused by some of the interpretations the films take on characters, images, and scenes that I inevitably conjure up to be completely different in my head. The dementors and Death Eaters were so different from my vision that it was like I was watching something completely different. And Luna Lovegood was so glam! Do you remember the Disney cartoon Recess from Disney's One Saturday Morning? Well, I pictured Luna to be like that awkward bean pole of a girl with stringy brown hair, glasses and bucked teeth. Anybody?!

This was the shortest movie in the series thus far, but it's the longest book. Needless to say, they took some liberties adapting it to the silver screen. The movie was entertaining overall, especially the final battle scene and Harry & Cho's liplocking session (gives mistletoe a completely new meaning). But it wouldn't be a Harry Potter movie if I didn't feel like I would be completely lost had I not read the book. They details are already blending together from book to book in my mind, and I can't figure out what will come in the next film, what they expect the viewer to know already, and what they are leaving out altogether. Looks like I've got some re-reading and re-watching to do!

P.S. Can you imagine if Daniel Radcliff and Emma Watson pulled a High School Musical and got together like Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens? Or would it be Emma and Rupert Grint? Either way, they just seem too sophisticated for something like that, no?