Harry Potter: Good but...

We just got back from the debut showing of “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” at one of the local movie theaters. My take? This is the first Harry Potter movie that felt like it was made simply to set up the next installment in the series.

It was good and an enjoyable 2 hours and 10 minutes, but it seems like the production staff is starting to trade story for special effects, as happens so often in series productions. It fell well short of previous efforts. I thought the new characters in this movie were well crafted…I particularly liked the fey new “Luna” character. Having never read the books (I started one, but found Rowling’s prose unbelievably tedious), I don’t know how she figures in the continuation of the adventures in the already-completed volumes.

It was a sparse crowd at our local theater…I’d say it was at only about 30 percent of seating capacity – seemingly bad news for day one of an expected blockbuster, though I expect box office totals will eventually meet expectations.

*****

We also went a little over a week ago to see the new Die Hard movie, “Live Free or Die Hard.” Pocket review? Yippee Ki Yay MF’ers! Bruce Willis never disappoints ad this is no exception. We took the children, who then spent the next day in a Die Hard-a-palooza, watching the entire rest of the series.