I'm sorry I didn't re-read the book right before seeing this, but at least I've read the entire six books so far (and seen all the previous movies), so I have a fairly good knowledge of the plot. If I didn't, I would have found this movie completely incomprehensible. It's a series of scenes out of the book, and some of them are quite amusing, but they are simply strung together without any real connecting thread.
For a movie titled "Order of the Phoenix," I would personally have liked to have seen a little more of the Order. I didn't even find it very clear from the movie whether Minerva McGonagall was a member of the Order, and I'd have liked to have seen a stronger development of the relationship between Harry and Sirius, although the good performance by Gary Oldman (of whom I'm not otherwise all that big a fan) does help compensate for any weakness in the script.
Realistically, I may be being a little too harsh, considering that the book is over 800 pages and some condensation had to be made, but some things seem to have been left in because they were cute (like the Weasley twins' magic performance during the O.W.L.S.) even though they weren't essential to the main story and wasted time that could have been better spent developing the central elements of the story.
If you see this theatrically, try to see it in an IMAX theater, which is an interesting experience, but otherwise you might want to wait for the DVD release. But most of all, know the story in advance, or you'll really have trouble following this movie. It just doesn't equal its four predecessor movies for a coherent storyline.
For a movie titled "Order of the Phoenix," I would personally have liked to have seen a little more of the Order. I didn't even find it very clear from the movie whether Minerva McGonagall was a member of the Order, and I'd have liked to have seen a stronger development of the relationship between Harry and Sirius, although the good performance by Gary Oldman (of whom I'm not otherwise all that big a fan) does help compensate for any weakness in the script.
Realistically, I may be being a little too harsh, considering that the book is over 800 pages and some condensation had to be made, but some things seem to have been left in because they were cute (like the Weasley twins' magic performance during the O.W.L.S.) even though they weren't essential to the main story and wasted time that could have been better spent developing the central elements of the story.
If you see this theatrically, try to see it in an IMAX theater, which is an interesting experience, but otherwise you might want to wait for the DVD release. But most of all, know the story in advance, or you'll really have trouble following this movie. It just doesn't equal its four predecessor movies for a coherent storyline.