i enjoyed the film. the fights at the end looked really cool. and i love the scenes where umbridge is interrogating the staff, especially when snape smacks ron on the back of the head. that was hilarious. but damn there were some things from the book i really really wanted to see and they took out.
in the book, the weasley twins spend a good amount of time causing trouble for umbridge. i really wanted to see the hallway turned into a swamp. plus, in the book it was hilarious how the other instructors, especially mcgonagall, wouldn't clean up the messes that the twins made; they always left it for umbridge to deal with, since they all hated her. i can't believe they took that out. so gay. all we got was the one fireworks scene. a couple more minutes spent with the weasley twins could've made a huge difference.
they also don't really touch on just how bad harry felt when he saw what his father did in snape's memories. harry is really ashamed of his father's actions. i'm also not sure if the memories got across that snape wasn't threatening when he was young, just unpopular and picked on. that was a pretty important scene in the book, because it was supposed to humanize snape. the movie barely touched on it.
also, the movie barely spends any time at the phoenix headquarters, but i think like a quarter of the book takes place there. i know that most of it isn't necessary to the plot, but they keep harry's anger in the movie and then never explain why he's angry. i'm pretty sure in the book he ends up having a fight with ron and possibly hermione, since he blames them for his being in the dark about everything that went on during the summer. but in the movie his anger just kind of fades away. also, by taking out all the time spend at headquarters, the audience gets to see the members of the order of the phoenix, and that's about it. the audience doens't know who most of them are at all, unlike in the book where we end up spending so much time with them. so, for anyone who wants to know more about the chick who changes her hair and facial features, or wants to see more of the grumbling house elf, or wants to know why all the paintings in sirius's house are covered with black drapes, read the book.
and i haven't read the half-blood prince yet, so i know that in the order of the phoenix we see the entire prophecy and that it's trelawney who gives the prophecy, and that's why dumbledore keeps her around. in the movie they don't even touch on the fact that it could've been neville instead of harry.
and because all the previous movies barely touched on the harry/cho thing, this movie still didn't get across just what a big deal it is that she's into him. despite that it shows them kissing, their whole relationship still feels pretty glossed-over in the movie.
they also skipped over the whole thestral-riding thing. it's made clear that only harry and luna (and neville, of course, though i think that's skipped over in the movie) see the thestrals, but then suddenly everyone's riding one. they could've taken the extra ten seconds to show hermione and the rest of them freaking out because they're flying in the air and are clinging for dear life to something they can't even see. i brought this up after the movie to my friend (who has not ready any of the books), and he was like, "yeah, i was wondering about that." i'm sure a lot of people in the audience who haven't read the books were wondering wtf? when kids who couldn't see the thestrals are suddenly riding on them.
it's amazing how much stuff in the book was kept out of the movie. i read in one review that, for order of the phoenix, they took the longest of the books and made the shortest of the movies so far. i dont' know if that's true or not, but either way they should've shown more of the twins hijinks.
