Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

I thought I could hold out, but no. So, last night we saw "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix".

Out of all movies made to date, this is by far my favourite and David Yates is the most impressive of all the Harry Potter directors. Granted, by book 5 the story line had definitely gotten darker, the plot richer and the characters more developed (on so many levels), so Mr. Yates had a bit more to work with. Although, I did feel that "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," director Mike Newell could have paid more attention to the story itself, yet decided to make it more of a visual effects ride for the audience. That's fine if you don't read the books, but for us serious Harry Potter fans, the story details are ver-ver important (see the differences between the movie and film here). You don't want to leave the audience of the final film feeling empty with a lot of possible plot holes.

Anyway, the 5th film did take some liberties with the story line, so if you haven't read the book and would like to get the cliff note version of what you should know, go here. Considering book 5 is about 700 pages, I still feel that Mr. Yates did a fabulous job in keeping to important details.

As for the visual effects, perhaps not as thrilling as the Triwizard Tournament of Book 4, but still impressive with the Centaurs, Thestrals, Dementers (aka Death Eaters), overall scenery and fight scenes.

Now my countdown begins for the release of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows". How am I ever going to sleep this week.