I have to say this is the first Harry Potter movie that I walked away from enjoying beginning to end.
Having seen it in iMax on opening night, didn’t hurt either.
The story, while it couldn’t nearly hold everything the book delivered, was extremely well edited, conveyed the pertinent points, and kept good pace. I actually enjoyed the fact that we were shown little snippets of scenes, and left to our own understanding of the wizarding world to fill in the gaps. For instance, we saw the Hogwarts train exterior, then Harry behind a window, and suddenly he was at his destination — none of the details were drawn out. The story moved to film nicely.
Additionally, there are some characters you love to hate (not just Snape this time), and the movie invokes an engaging sense of emotion where you want to just reach out and strangle the antagonists yourself. Well done!
But what really impressed me, especially after seeing Transformers, was the most spectacular display of special effect wizard battles that has ever been seen to hit the screen. You thought the plasma splashing wands were great in the last movie, be prepared for multiple intense battles that will make you want to buy the DVD just to re-watch those segments. And, they spend plenty of screen time on them!
The poorly implemented days of CGI kids on brooms are gone; the special effects are top notch. When you see the dementors, you’ll be amazed at how fluid they look. The special effects team has done wonders with particles and smoke-like wisps.
The dramatic scenes and forced perspective for impressive use of space are just outstanding. There are plenty of interior and exterior shots of the castle to enjoy.
Oddly enough, the only two faults that were remotely distracting were pretty petty. One, during the opening scene some of the sweeps and pans felt overly blurry, then again this could have been iMax exaggerating the effect. Two, Hermione has gone down a cup size, which either makes it feel like they shot things out of order, or they really tried to tone down her feminine side; in the prior movie, she looked like adolescence hit, which made them seem closer to graduation — now Harry looks older, and she looks younger. Weird. Maybe it was just an unflattering outfit. But, whatever it was, it made the ages of the characters just slightly discontinuous.
Walt gives the new Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix a big thumbs up!