As the Order of the Phoenix file out of the Room of Requirement, Harry steels himself to go kiss Cho. Ginny shoots him a pained look.

EVERY FEMALE IN THE AUDIENCE: Awwwwwww!
Snookums: *eye roll* Girls.

My Official OOTP One-Word Review: PHWOAR! (That’s a thumbs-up, in other words.) Read on for my scattered thoughts.Seriously, it is becoming more and more apparent that the real intended audience for these movies is grown-up women (and gay men). There’s more fodder for fan fiction in this one movie than in an entire series of Star Trek. I’d pretty much been immune to the Snape-love before, but WHOA. Every time Alan Rickman snaked out a syllable, the women in the audience swooned. And that scene, the one where he’s teaching Harry Occlumency, you know, the one where he warns Harry he’s about to penetrate him…? Uh yeah. Anyway. Man, Daniel Radcliffe is looking really fit, isn’t he? Could there BE anymore shots of his neck or sweaty chest? There could not. (He’s still a bit too pretty in the face for me, but I’m willing to overlook it.) And Sirius was SMOKIN’ in this movie. I know that some folks have been on the Gary Oldman train for years, but I never really got it. Before. Ahem.

But enough about the eye candy. There was lots of other stuff I liked, the most important being that they cut all the crap out of the story. I always found Phoenix too long and confusing, and the movie version boils down the story nicely. (Though it does leave a very obvious plot hole: why the hell does Voldemort suddenly want the prophecy anyway? Not that it matters, since it’s a total MacGuffin and the information itself isn’t exactly earth-shattering.) Helena Bonham-Carter was a complete nutbar, and I mean that in the most complimentary way. The kiss was nicely done. (Though I missed most of the conversation afterwards, as the audience was still rolling from Harry’s “Wet.” comment.) LOVED Fred and George, as usual. Love Ginny, love Neville. Surprisingly, I really liked Luna Lovegood! I never warmed to her in the books and I expected to be ambivalent, but the actress did a great job with it. I loved the fact that they were able to incorporate so much footage from the previous films, like the scene with Harry and the Mirror of Erised.

Also liked: all the typography. I’m serious. Whoever had to design all those newspapers and Educational Decrees did a really good job.

And lastly… Tonks. Yeah, it was purple, and it was briefly red, and she didn’t suck too much… but mostly I’m just glad that she was only in it for two minutes. I’ll have that much more scope for creativity in my costume!